A Love to Kill
by isle-of-fervor
Summary: Sequel to A Dangerous Game. Caroline is broken, and intent on seeking vengeance for her friends...even if that means killing Klaus. Eventual Klaroline.
1. Reunion

**A/N: Ok, so it's been a little while but I have been working (somewhat) consistently on this fic for you guys like I promised. I know half of you hate me for the last chapter of A dangerous game and half of you love me, but I hope this fic makes up (or sustains or whatever) for that! BTW, you do not have to have read A dangerous game before this, but it does obviously contain spoilers for it, and the first few chapters may be a bit confusing to start with.**

** Enjoy, R&amp;R :)**

* * *

The plan was definitely not for _him_ to find _her_ first.

Caroline had been in England for four months now, doing nothing but chasing useless lead after useless lead after useless lead. She was downtrodden, but not exactly shocked. It was hardly surprising that no sane witch wanted to trust the foreign new baby vampire. The most information that she got out of any witch was just another name of _another_ witch to chase up on. Caroline had tried the good cop scenario, bad cop and every other damn cop in between.

What she had learnt so far: the witch that had created the stake was named Emily May Hedden. For some reason still unknown to her coven, Emily May had been born with an abnormally ability to channel huge amounts of power, especially for such a young age. Even _more _extraordinary than that was the massive amount of control she managed to keep over it, able to perform spells as a teenager that would have challenged witches had practiced for decades. Emily was apparently scarily in tune with the spirits, so much that she was even able to contact the Bennett witches, who she was only very distantly related too.

It was the same Bennett spirits who had helped her craft the stake that could take down Klaus. Emily had made the weapon after Klaus had unknowingly used Emily's older sister as one of his errand witches, than had discarded of her in his usual grotesque way. The stake itself was nothing but an ordinary piece of oak, completely indistinguishable but for Emily May's initials carved in the base handle. In other words, impossible to find unless you knew where to look.

Not that any witch was willing to help Caroline in _that _department.

Finally, though, Caroline found a lead. It was a witch named Marilyn, a withered old lady who lived alone in a small flat in Chelsea, England.

"Why would I tell you where Emily May's stake is?" Marilyn asked, swirling her spoon around her teacup. "You're a vampire. You could well be compelled and working for Klaus."

"I take vervain every day." Caroline sipped the tea, which was laced heavily vervain as well, and willed herself not to flinch. Marilyn narrowed her eyes at Caroline over the table, trying to determine whether or not she was telling the truth.

"Still…" She said cautiously, "As with any other serial killer lunatic, Klaus has his own little groupies. Are you promising me that you're not just in love with him?"

Caroline didn't realise that she had crushed the china teacup in her hand until she felt the hot vervain liquid burn red trails down her palms.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to do that." Caroline mumbled, feeling her cheeks grow hot in a mixture of embarrassment and frustration. This was shaping up to beyet another useless, misleading conversation _again_. "Why would you invite me inside your home if you that that I was working for Klaus?"

Marilyn waved off the question. "What was your reason for wanting to kill Klaus again, sweetheart?" She asked, her voice probing.

Caroline hesitated briefly, about to launch into the carefully constructed cover story of Klaus changing her against her will, tracking her down and wanting to kill her. She had never talked willingly about the Worst day of her life after it had happened, much preferring to burrow down all memories connected to that into the darkest parts of her mind that she rarely let herself visit.

"I want the truth." Marilyn spoke up suddenly, as if she had been reading Caroline's thoughts. Caroline bit her lip.

"He...wronged me." She said finally, the carefully selected words coming out haltingly. "And I want...justice."

"I'm afraid I'll need something a little more specific." Marilyn said. Caroline glared at her immediately, a knee-jerk hostile reaction that came with anyone who tried to ask too many questions. The witch stared back, her eyes scrutinizing. She knew something, something concrete that could finally kick start Caroline, that much was clear. And perhaps, she was asking so many questions because she was considering trusting Caroline. Why was Caroline hesitating? Making such a big deal about something that was probably going to be the easiest part of this entire journey? She was going to have to get over herself, how was she planning on being able to deal with physically attacking and killing Klaus if she couldn't even overcome her own emotional roadblocks? So far, this witch was the best and only chance Caroline had had in a long time, and like hell was she willing to give that up. Taking a deep breath, Caroline took the plunge.

"My best friend was a witch." She said after a moment, looking down and watching the vervain burns heal slowly on her hands. "My other two best friends were both vampires, but they didn't kill humans to feed. They tried. I loved them all. So much, I loved them all so much." She met Marilyn's gaze. "Klaus murdered them all, just a flight of stairs down from where I stood. And I _am_ going to kill him. No matter what it takes."

Marilyn stared back at her, the small flat except for the dull, rhythmic ticking of the wall clock that emphasis ed each long second of silence.

Marilyn clasped her hands under her chin, staring at the ceiling as if in prayer. "I don't know where the stake is." She said finally. "But I know someone that does."

Caroline began to protest immediately. "All I've _heard _is your _exact _words-"

Marilyn held up a hand to silence her. "Be quiet." Caroline mouth twisted into a frown.

"Like I was saying, I know for _sure _this person knows where the first hint is."

"The first hint? What is this, some sort of scavenger hunt?"

Marilyn grinned, showing her crooked dentures. "Of course it is. I only met Emily May once, but she was once of the slyest women I ever met. This is not a straightforward task, Caroline. Know that before you take yourself any further. Any who, I know that my great niece Janice knows where the first hint is, because she told me so. When you meet her, tell her that Marilyn sent you, and that I'm cashing in my favour from Puerto Rico. She'll definitely help you."

"Okay, great. Yes, I can do it. Thank you, thanks." For the first time in months Caroline felt a spark of optimism. Marilyn's lead would definitely help her., bring one step closer to ending this once and for all.

"The only problem is finding Janice."

Caroline's optimism faded as quickly as it had appeared.

"What do you mean?" She asked, gritting her teeth.

"Anyone who knows anything about Emily's weapon is in hiding, child. You're not the only one looking for Emily May's stake." Marilyn's grin faded, and Caroline didn't need to be a genius to figure out the other party of people that were undoubtedly searching for the stake. Subconsciously, her eyes flitted to the windows and doors, triple checking that they weren't being eavesdropped. Caroline knew what she was up against, however, and had been nothing but careful with approaching and talking to witches. She was confident that they were alone.

"Well, do _you _know where Janice is?"

"Last I heard, a week ago, she was still here in Chelsea. Here," Marilyn got up and shuffled into her kitchen and to her fridge. She pulled a photo off it, and a thousand and one magnets went clattering to the floor in a succession of noise. Marilyn ignored it and handed Caroline the photo. It was a photo of a teenager about Caroline's own age, wearing a teal string bikini and a pair of aviator sunglasses. They were shading the top half of her face, but Caroline quickly noted the broad nostrils on the nose, the slightly puckered top lip and the sharp chin. She went to hand it back to Marilyn, the image ingrained in her mind, but the old woman shook the gesture off.

"Keep it. You don't know how long searching for her will take. I have piles of Janice's silly little selfies here." Marilyn laughed, and laid a gentle hand on Caroline's shoulder. "I may not like _what_ you are, child, but I _do _like what you're fighting for. Do me a favour and try and do it peacefully, ok? I don't want innocents to die for your own personal vendetta. If you ruin my town, I'll have to return the favour."

Caroline managed a smile. "I don't drink from the vein." She told Marilyn. "And I don't have the sort of conscious that would allow me to kill."

"Keep it that way." Marilyn settled herself back into her chair and sipped her tea. "All the best, child."

"Thank you." Caroline said sincerely, her first solid clue since this had begun clutched tightly in her fist.

* * *

Marilyn had been wrong. Janice wasn't just difficult to find. She was _impossible. _Caroline had spent over two weeks now, combing every pub, restaurant, coffee shop, school, mall and library for a glimpse of her. She had lost count of all the strange looks she had received due to over creeping at strangers' noses and lips. So far, nothing. Caroline decided to give Chelsea another week, before trying to branch out. She considered compelling some humans to give her a hand looking for Janice, but had gone off that idea almost immediately after remembering that was the same tactic that Elena's psycho birth mother had taken. No, _thank _you.

God, she missed Elena so much. No, not the time to think about it.

One disastrously boring and fruitless Thursday night, Caroline was in a club called Vendome, downing her third mojito. This was the seventh time she had been looking for Janice in this club, and she was slowly working her way through the entire cocktail menu. Apparently, some up and coming Kate Moss lookalike socialite was rumoured to be showing up sometime tonight, so the majority of the club's crowd were swarmed by the front entrance. The only people still dancing were the ones too drunk to care about the girl, or all the people who thought they were above fangirling over a reality show star. And Caroline, of course. Who already knew for a fact that this girl, whoever her name was, was _not_ Janice, which meant she was nothing to Caroline.

A very drunk, middle aged man wearing very, very tight red leather pants stumbled up to Caroline, landing a meaty paw on her shoulder, and slurred out an invitation for a dance.

Caroline gritted her teeth into a polite smile, and wished that she was drunk. "No thank you," She said, downing the rest of her drink.

"Come on, sweetheart, I've got the moves." The old man began performing a set of particularly vile hip thrusts, losing his balance and falling over in Caroline, who tried to shove the dead weight off.

"I'm fine, thank you." She repeated, standing up.

"_Come _on, you sexy little tease!" The man said more insistently, his hand shooting out in the direction of Caroline's breast. Caroline flinched away automatically. Another hand clamped on the man's wrist, stopping it in its path.

"You have three seconds to move along, mate, before I rip your head off." The man who had grabbed the drunk man's wrist said, his voice a pleasant British lilt.

Caroline felt her knees buckles and herself fall back onto her chair, her legs no longer able to support her. The drink she was clutching in her hand smashed and rivulets of sticky liquid ran through her fingers and over her knuckles. She felt a cold, clammy sweat pool in her palms and armpits. _No_. _NO. _Oh, God, _PLEASE _no.

Slowly, Caroline lifted her gaze to look at him. He looked different, and the same, all at once. He had grown out his scruff into something that was almost a beard, and his blonde curls were looking wildly shaggy. Caroline usually preferred the clean cut look, but she couldn't help herself from thinking that he suited it, then blanch at the fact that Klaus' facial hair. was something she even let enter her mind. As if he could read her thoughts, Klaus' mouth spread into his trademark cocky smirk, his hand still wrapped around the drunk man's arm.

"Leave him, Klaus." Caroline said. "He's harmless." It was the first words she had said to him, this man that hand wrecked and changed her life irrevocably in less than a minute, in thirty five years. She was proud of the fact that her voice did not tremble, especially since she felt moments away to apssing out completely.

Klaus raised an eyebrow.

"I'll be the judge of that, love." He said. "He didn't look so harmless one minute ago."

Caroline grabbed the guy by the scruff of his neck and pulling him towards her, simultaneously trying to ignore the sudden spike in her sense as she inhaled the familiar _scent _and proximity of Klaus. She leant forward and looked into the drunk man's eyes, her pupils diluting.

"Leave this club and go to sleep. Drink some water before you go to bed." Nodding, the drunk man wrenched himself from Klaus' grasp and made his way to the front door, shoving through the large crowd that was still gathered there. Klaus said nothing as he left, instead taking the man's position of the chair next to Caroline. Caroline turned away from him and focused her gaze on her empty drink in front of her, her eyes blurring as she struggled to focus.

"Ahem." Klaus cleared his throat. "Would you like another, sweetheart?"

One part of Caroline was tempted to reply with one of her trademark responses, "_Thanks, but I'd rather die of thirst", _or something along those lines. She bit her lip before she could speak, so hard that she drew blood. She didn't feel comfortable sharing that kind of banter with Klaus anymore. Too much had changed. There was too much hanging in the small space between them. How could she playfully tease the man who had slaughtered her best friends?

"I'll get my own." Caroline said, instead, waving over the bartender. "Another." She requested, pushing her glass forward.

"I'll have a Scotch. Clean." Klaus requested, his eyes trained on Caroline even as he spoke to the bartender. Caroline pointedly ignored him, trying to sift through the tumbling wave of emotions all battling for dominance. Grief. Confusion. Sadness. Disgusting, a tiny speck of relief and happiness at a familiar face. But overpoweringly, anger. She was so angry that she could feel every pore in her body practically _vibrate._ She hadn't allowed herself to feel any emotions in decades and now she was struggling to keep them below the surface, to fight the urge to jump up and smash every single thing in the room.

"Love." Klaus said, trying to catch her attention. Caroline's hands twitched.

"Caroline." His voice was laced with irritation now, an order rather than a request. Reluctantly, Caroline swivelled in her bar stool to face him, her upright with tension.

"I didn't realise you were in England." His familiar bravado sent Caroline tumbling through a pitfall of memories. Every word he had ever said to her, how the raw words they shared in private were so vastly different from the cruel things he would say in public, when he was trying to impress everyone by being the cruel and ruthless hybrid. The last thing he had ever said to her, "I should have killed you, too."

Caroline felt bile rising in her throat. She needed to throw up. This man, this man standing so fucking _casually_ in front of her, was responsible for the pointless and pitiful thing she now called her life. He was the responsible for the Worst day in her life. He was responsible for the nightmares that plagued her every night. He was responsible for every tear she shed in the dark in the middle of the night, enveloped in nothing but misery and grief. She had lost everyone, just so that he didn't have to lose a child's game. He was responsible for the new Caroline that had emerged after her Worst day: hard, unfeeling, mean, careful to distance herself from anyone and everyone. He was responsible for bringing her to the verge of flipping her humanity switch.

The only thing that had held her back was the fear of not caring, or remembering her friends anymore. They deserved more than that. They deserved to be mourned, and cried over, and brought vengeance over. And that was exactly what Caroline was going to give them.

"I've been everywhere now. I just point to a map," She cleared her throat, trying to keep herself from screaming at him and attacking him. "And go there. It's not like I have ties to anyone anymore." There it was. The moment she said the words she saw Klaus' smirk shift a millimetre, displeasure dawning in his eyes. Did he expect her not to bring it up? What, did he expect her to _forget_?

The bartender poured up Caroline's drink and she downed it all in one swell gulp, wiping the residue off her chin.

"Thirsty?" Klaus asked, raising an eyebrow.

"More like a crippling desire to get drunk." Caroline answered.

Klaus frowned. "I prefer you sober. I believe people are more unbecoming drunk."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "I prefer you unjudging." She snapped, unable to stop herself. "And don't lecture me on drinking. You sound like me talking to my fiancé." Caroline knew when she said that it would shift the conversation immediately from her drinking. She wasn't in any mood to be lectured.

That piqued Klaus' interest. "Fiancé?" He asked, his voice raising in pitch. Caroline saw a hint of possessiveness flash across his eyes. How dare he? Ruin her life and then walk back into it thirty years later, throwing off shade about her behaviour and relationships.

"Yes. Eric."

"How long have you been seeing him?"

"I don't know. Three years, I think. Feels like a lifetime. I can't stand him."

Klaus' eyebrows shot up so quickly that it was almost comical.

"Pardon," He said, his voice at least an octave higher than its usual pitch. "May I possibly ask why you're engaged to him, then?"

_No, you may _not, _you murdering psycho because you have _no _right to know _anything _about my life._ Caroline couldn't stand this another minute. She didn't want to be here with him. She wanted to _kill _him. That was the whole reason that she was in this damn stupid club anyway. She didn't want to _drink _with this man, or tell him about her _personal _life, or to be asked question by the _monster _that had made her entire world stop turning. If she didn't leave right now, she would blow up at Klaus and probably give something away and ruin her entire plan. She couldn't let her friends down like that.

She stood up, gathering her handbag and slapping money down on the bar to pay for her drinks. Caroline turned to smile joylessly at Klaus, her face bleak and stained with bitterness.

"Haven't you heard, Klaus? It's my new lifestyle. I surround myself with people that I hate, so that when they are taken from me, they don't take everything I am with them."


	2. A Clue

The pavement pounded under Caroline's feet, as she pumped her arms and worked herself to go faster, _faster_. One mile, two miles…after seven miles, Caroline felt herself deflated of all oxygen and finished her morning run with her daily routine of slowly hobbling back to her motel room, clutching her aching side. Through her breathless pain, Caroline smiled to herself. Yesterday she had only managed six and a half. Running this way, making herself feel each step in the human plod-like way of running, instead of flashing would probably seem idiotic to most vampires. Why put yourself through the paces of jogging when you could be anywhere, painlessly, without even losing your breath by using vampire speed? But Caroline liked the pain, almost as much as she liked the weird sense of achievement long distance running was giving her. She had heard that when you were jogging that your mind went blank and you could concentrate on nothing but each step in front of you, and it was true. It allowed Caroline thirty minutes of calm, humane normalcy a day.

Caroline's motel room still looked bare and empty, despite her having lived in it for four months now. The only traces of her being there was the unmade bed, the open, overflowing suitcase in the corner of the room, and the small make up collection stacked tidily on her bedside table. Oh, _and_ her slightly serial killer-like pin board hanging over her bed. In the centre of the board was Janice's photo, a halo of yellow string pinned around it. Caroline had stuck up a catalogue of the shop that Janice's bikini was from beside it, and beside that was the most 'chill' places to hang out in Chelsea, according to a couple of random teenagers she had asked on the street. There was photos from every one of Janice's yearbooks, and handwritten notes from talking to all of Janice's friends that Caroline had been able to track down. Unfortunately, none of them had known where Janice had gone either. Or, more accurately, most of them thought that she was still in Chelsea and didn't realise they hadn't seen their friend in five weeks until Caroline had probed them for details.

_Some friends she has_ Caroline thought, studying her board like she did every day. _I think about _mine _every day._ Of course the situations were slightly different, but Caroline didn't feel like listening to her subconscious. Right now, she was irritated that Janice's friends were slack, and that they couldn't help her track Janice down.

A sharp rapping on the door interrupted Caroline's thoughts. Her weedy and slightly creepy landlord, Mr Fiench, poked his head around the door, his eyes flashing like he was hoping that he had caught Caroline mid-dress or something equally scandalous. Jerk. At the sight of her in her oversized men's running shirt, dark with sweat, his smile faded and he poked his open palm in the room.

"This weeks rent, please," He ordered, his mouth pulling over his teeth in a smug smile. Caroline sighed and made her way to the bed, searching under the mattress until she came across her envelope of funds. She counted out a wad of cash and gave it to Mr Fiench, jamming the door shut on his face. The money was all from Stefan's and Damon's fortune, as well as some petty funds she had picked up along the way. She figured that they wouldn't mind much, seeing as Damon had killed their last living relative and it would have otherwise sat there doing nothing. Caroline didn't exactly want to have to worry about money. She had only _one_ objective in England.

"So…what's the plan today?" Caroline murmured to herself, moving to stand in front of the Janice pin board again. She cocked her head, trying to pick up a person or place she hadn't already scoured for the girl. Caroline was beginning to suspect that Janice had left Chelsea by now, but if she had, what did that mean for Caroline? Where was she meant to look then? She had absolutely no idea where Janice would go. She didn't know her at all. She could go _anywhere_, and looking for her then would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. No, Caroline decided, she would do one last sweep of Chelsea again, combing every square inch of this damn city, before she finally gave up and moved on.

Caroline showered and dressed as quickly as she could and headed out, her curls still slightly damp. She decided to start with the mall. It was her own frequent hang out spot after all, back before when she was still an innocent teenage human girl, without thousand year old Hybrids to try and kill. She started in the swimwear shop that the photographed bikini was from, pretending to flick idly through a stack of one pieces as she eyed up every female customer.

And then…she saw her. It was a split second, a tall girl moving into the changing rooms with a stack of rainbow coloured kaftans slung over one arm. Her hair was a badly dyed peroxide yellow, unlike the brunette in the photo that Caroline had, but as she pulled back the changing room curtain her nose wrinkled, showing the same quirk in her top lip that Caroline had studied so many times in Marilyn's photo. Not caring about the other humans in the shop, Caroline finally utilized her vamprie speed and whooshed in the changing room after Janice, blocking Janice's way out as the thin curtain fluttered shut behind them. Janice, immediately sensing what Caroline was, backed against the opposite wall, her eyes a mix of terror and anger.

"Leave me alone." She ordered, her voice trembling. She began raising a hand, no doubt to give Caroline one of those awful witchy headaches Bonnie used to spit out.

"WaitdontworryMarilynfromCostaRicasentme." Caroline blurted out quickly in one breath, putting her hands up to show her innocence. Janice lowered her hand.

"What? Marilyn?"

Caroline glanced behind her quickly, very aware of the non-soundproof set up of the small cubicle. Lowering her voice into an urgent whisper, she took a step closer to the girl, trying to make her face comforting as the girl shrank away.

"She said you have to give me Emily's first clue. In change of what she did for you in Costa Rica. Please, do you have it?" Caroline couldn't believe it. She had _found _Janice. She was finally getting somewhere with this entire impossible task! She felt the wild urge to burst into victorious tears. Janice hesitated.

"Why does Marilyn want to help you?" She asked suspiciously. "You're a…a…"

"Vampire, yeah." Caroline said. She grabbed one of Janice's hands, ignoring the girls automatic flinching, and looked earnestly into the young girls eyes. "But I'm fighting on the witch's side. I want Klaus dead just as much as everyone else does."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

Caroline shrugged helplessly. This was the part of the plan that was murky. If she couldn't convince Janice, what was she going to do then? Torture her for the information? The witches involved with the stake had to have some sort of back up in place for that, obviously they would know that the Original would be after the information for himself. Caroline had to try and get it out from the teen willingly.

"There's really no concrete way to prove to you that I am. I'm just asking for you to take a chance on me, like Marilyn did. She found it in herself to believe me." Caroline squeezed the girls hand, her tone aching with earnest.

A silence fell between the two girls. Janice's posture was still tense, her eyes still wary. Caroline waited for her decision, her nerves running electricity over every inch of her skin. This was it. This is the moment that everything depended on. Janice's decision lay in front of her in the empty space between them, the air rife with tension.

Janice nodded suddenly, snapping Caroline's attention away from her thoughts. Slowly, Janice reached under her shirt and pulled out a large necklace locket. In the locket clasp was a small piece of paper, folded over a million times. Janice pressed it into Caroline's palm.

"If Marilyn trusts you then so do I." Janice paused, still looking unsure in her decision. "I've seen you around here recently, actually. I saw you at the library the other day."

Caroline could have kicked herself. The person she was looking for had seen _her _first? She was undoubtedly the worst spy in the world. Had Caroline seriously been fooled by a box of hair dye?

Not to mention running into Klaus, as well. Maybe Caroline should take Janice's route and dye her hair.

"Yeah, I've been looking for you for a while now." Caroline laughed, tucking the piece of paper into her jeans pocket. "Thank you for this. Really. I seriously appreciate this. I promise you, I _swear _on my life, that I will succeed. I'm going to stop Klaus from ruining any more lives."

Janice looked down, tear droplets gathering at the end of her eyelashes. "Emily and I didn't talk that much, but I still considered her as someone close to me." She said, her voice so soft that it was barely audible. "I can't believe that she's gone now."

Caroline laid a hand on Janice's shoulder. "She won't die in vain. I'll make sure of it." Caroline hurried out of the changing room stall and store, wanting to get home where she could read the first clue in private. She felt giddy with excitement. For the first time in what felt like years, a genuine smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She felt a new burst of energy and a spring in her step, even despite her gruelling morning run. She was so concentrated on getting out of the mall and back home that she didn't notice where she was walking, until she had collided face-first into a hard male chest.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Caroline trilled automatically, jumping back. Her hand subconsciously brushed over her pants pocket, as it now held the most important object of her life.

"It's quite alright, love." A familiar voice said, the amusement evident in the tone. Caroline stilled. Oh, no. Not _again_. Raising her head wearily, she found herself looking into the eyes of none other than the object of her obsession, Klaus.

"What are you doing here?" She snapped, moving herself further away.

"I presume for the same reason you are, sweetheart. A bit of shopping, a nice place to hang out."

Caroline snorted incredulously. "I didn't realise that Klaus Mikaelson liked to _hang out_ in shopping malls."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Caroline."

"Well, there's a lot that I _do_, too." Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. Klaus' gaze hardened.

"How long are you staying in Chelsea?" He asked.

Caroline was about to reply 'I don't know', until she realised that, actually, she had _found _Janice, hadn't she? There was no reason for her to stay in this small town that was now plagued with the disease that was Klaus Mikaelson.

"I'm not."

'"Where are you going?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"Back to your fiancé?" Klaus tried to pose the question casually, but Caroline could sense the tension beneath his words. She smiled, albeit bitterly.

"No, I'm good and done with Eric. I_ would _like my goldfish back, though." The teasing quip spilled out naturally, before she could stop it. Caroline felt mad at herself as she noticed Klaus' amused smirk, the way he leaned in slightly closer to her as if he thought her joke was her forgiving him. And then she heard it. Slight, almost inaudible, a sharp intake of shocked breath. Caroline's pupils darted to the left, her face staying conciously facing Klaus. _Janice._ The girl was exiting the mall, standing shocked at the door and staring at the two of them. Caroline immediately saw _exactly _how she looked like to Janice. The vampire who had just boasted about her great desire for 'justice' and 'vengeance' and wanting to kill Klaus Mikaelson, having an intimate looking discussion with the hybrid himself. A manipulative liar.

Caroline wanted to turn to Janice, and explain the truth. To yell after her as she hurried away. But that would draw attention to her, and she didn't want that. She knew that Klaus was looking for the weapon too. The last thing she would want was to draw attention to a key person in the investigation. Caroline watched Janice run out of the mall, a pit in her stomach. No doubt Janice was running to Marilyn right now, to tell the old witch the extent of Caroline's deceiving and traitorous ways. Caroline felt beads of sweat forming on the back of her neck. The witches would feel so betrayed and stupid. This was so awful. Would they come after her?

Her pupils flicked back to meet Klaus'.

"I'm leaving today." She said. "In about twenty minutes or so."

Klaus' eyes flickered in surprise, an expression not commonly seen in his face. "Why the sudden decision to go?"

"There's places I'd rather be than here."

"And those are…"

"Places without you, Klaus." Caroline smiled without joy. "I'll decide my destination while I pack. Which is what I'm going to do right now. I'll see you around." She paused. "Or not."

* * *

Caroline was back in her motel room, throwing her paltry amount of possessions back into her suitcase when there was a knocking on her front door.

"What do you want, Mr Fiench?" Caroline yelled, not bothering to turn around. "I know I gave you the right amount, don't try and get any more money from me."

_Crack._ Caroline felt all the air crush out of her body as she was slammed against the cold concrete wall. A hot hand was wrapped around her neck, pressing her back of her throat against the wall. _Klaus_.

"What are you doing?" Caroline grasped, grappling at his unmovable hand. Klaus leant his face in, his mouth pulled into a mocking grin.

"Why you think you can continually try and deceive me is beyond my thinking, love." He said, his voice low and menacing. "Do you really think I'm so _fucking _stupid?"

Caroline stilled and stopped struggling. She had never heard Klaus curse, _ever_. She didn't even know his pretty little British gentleman accent _could_.

"I…don't know what you mean." She choked out. Klaus laughed, tightening his grip.

"Don't bother lying, sweetheart. Do you really think I wouldn't notice you searching for the stake? Talking to the lovely teenage Janice?"

Caroline felt every muscle in her face slacken. _He knew_.

"Luckily for me, you found my first clue for me." Klaus trailed his free hand lazily up Caroline's leg, stopping at her hip and digging into her jeans pocket. Realizing what he was doing, Caroline resumed struggling, convulsing her entire body and snarling in an effort to get away and not let Klaus get the clue.

"Get off me! Get _off! _Let me _go!_" She wheezed, clawing at him.

"Ah, ah, ah." Klaus tutted disapprovingly. "Don't fight, love. We both want to find the same item. We're going to be a _team_ on this." He unfolded the paper and read it, a slow, almost genuine smile spreading across his face.

"Well, Caroline," He said, releasing his grip. Caroline fell to the floor with a thud and struggled to get up, moving as far away from Klaus as she could at the opposite side of the room and flattening herself against the wall. Her entire mind was spinning. Her body was slack in defeat, but tensed in preparation to fight or run. Klaus stood still, a pillar of calm, his pupils flashing with yellow as he eyed Caroline like a hunter looks at his prey.

"It looks like I'll be taking you to Tokyo after all."


	3. A Lie

"And, _why_ would we become a team? I mean, what's the logic behind that?" Caroline settled herself onto her bed. She knew that it was pointless to try and run. She knew that any useless escape attempt would just end up in her being pinned to the wall by her throat again. She was a prisoner, in a room, to Klaus, just as before.

"We're both looking for the same thing, aren't we?" Klaus asked innocently.

"Yeah, but we're looking for it for different reasons." Caroline snapped in reply.

Klaus' smile widened. "Oh, but I hardly think the reason behind your search is relevant now, is it?"

Caroline bristled. "You never know." She said pointedly, staring daggers at him. "Anyway, knowing I have my own agenda, why do you think for a second that _I_ would help _you_?"

"Because if you don't I will obliterate everyone you ever crossed paths with." Klaus said flatly.

Caroline snorted defiantly. "You've already killed the most important people in my life." She said, her voice shaking slightly. She didn't like Klaus seeing how his words could still affect her.

"Maybe. That still doesn't mean that you're willing to look the other way as I kill millions of innocent people. I'll start with your fiancé, and I'll work my way down until I reach Mystic Falls own little star sheriff."

Caroline felt her face drain of colour. Thirty five years ago, she had packed her bags and left her childhood home without so much as saying a 'goodbye' to her mother. It was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. After Klaus had caused the Worst day, Caroline knew that the people she loved weren't safe with her anymore. That separating herself from them was the surest way to keep them from the fate that her friends had suffered. It had been something close to torture; in her darkest moments of grieving, her mum had been all Caroline had wanted.

Klaus was _not_ going to kill Liz, not after all the sacrifices Caroline had made to keep her mum alive. As rage and indignation began to build, she felt her fangs elongate through her front teeth, her veins purple and grow in the creases beneath her eyes. Klaus' own eyes seem to light up, watching Caroline vamp out.

"Don't even think about it," Caroline hissed, her voice sounding terrifying even to her. "I am not _kidding_, Klaus, _don't even think about it_." Her fingers were so tightly curled into fists that she could feel her fingernails drawing blood in the skin of her palm.

Klaus reached out and cupped her cheek in one hand, trailing his thumb across his jaw. He looked entranced by her death threats.

"You are celestial, love." He murmured, almost reverently.

"_Don't touch me_."

Klaus retracted his hand, a look of awe still on his face.

"You _will_ help me, Caroline." He said, the words an affectionate yet stone-set order. Caroline didn't bother replying. They both knew that he had her as his fucked up little sidekick as soon as he said the words 'Mystic Falls'. Slowly, she felt her veins fade back into her normal face.

"How am I meant to help you anyway?" She asked her voice laced with bitterness. "What can _I _do that the all-powerful hybrid _can't_?"

Klaus looked at her with amused tolerance. "You can be my infiltrator, love. Everyone wants to trust a pretty little blonde like you."

Caroline laughed. "Not anymore. You wouldn't know, but Janice-"

"Saw us talking together at the mall, yes." Klaus finished her sentence. Caroline gaped at him.

"You saw her?" She asked. _Damn_, _I thought I had been subtle about looking at her._

"I've been watching for Janice for weeks." Klaus said. "As well as you." He added, as an afterthought. Caroline felt utterly stupid.

So, Klaus had known what she was doing the moment she had arrived in Chelsea. How had she not put that together? As if her running into him, after _thirty five _years, in the very town that held the first important clue to finding the most powerful weapon in the world was? She was an absolute _idiot_. To add insult to the injury, Klaus had known exactly where Janice had been all the weeks that Caroline had been pounding the pavement looking for her. She fought to keep her irritation off her face, to stay impassive.

"So you know that no one's going to trust me anymore." She said flatly. "I know you've appointed yourself as team leader for whatever this is, but if I could make a suggestion, I would say that we should probably leave Chelsea very soon. I don't doubt Marilyn will be looking for me very soon."

"No, I don't doubt she will." Klaus agreed. He scooted closer to Caroline, who subconsciously shifted backwards.

"So we need to make her trust you again."

"We _can't_, it's impossible-"

"Nothing's impossible, love." Klaus said, moving even closer. In on swift movement, he grabbed Caroline and pulled her flat against him, dipping his head into her neck and biting into her flesh.

Caroline collapsed onto the heavy wooden door in front of her. When she moved her hand back to clutch at the rapidly oozing wound at her neck, she saw that she had left a bloody hand print on the white paint.

"Marilyn, _help_ me!" Caroline screamed. Before the words had even left her mouth, the door opened, causing Caroline to stumble forward, and Marilyn and Janice glowered at her from the doorway. Caroline held her hands up in surrender.

"Please!" She cried. "Please, I know what you think! But, look," Caroline turned her head and brushed her hair to the side, revealing the giant werewolf bite. Janice gasped.

"Let me inside!" Caroline looked around frantically. "I escaped, I'm not safe, he's looking for me!"

Without saying a word, Marilyn wrapped a firm hand around Caroline's bicep and pulled her gently inside, slamming the door shut behind her.

"You'll be safe from Klaus here. He's never been invited in." The old witch said, planting Caroline down in one of the kitchen chairs.

"Now," She said, her face not giving any emotions away. "Explain." The witches stood above Caroline, both looking untrusting and poised to attack at any moment.

A stray tear leaked from Caroline's eye, and she wiped it away irritably. "I ran into him in a club a couple of nights ago. He already knew about Janice, and he figured out exactly what I was doing. I didn't figure that out. I was _so _stupid." Caroline pounded the kitchen table in front of her angrily. "Then… he started following me. He followed me to the mall, and saw me talking to you,"

He cut me off on my way home, and took me back to my motel and strangled me and-and _threatened _me, until I gave him the first clue." Tears pooled in Caroline's eyes. She buried her face in her hands. "I'm so sorry! I didn't want to, but I didn't think I had a choice. I know what he's capable of and I got…so scared."

Marilyn laid a gentle but firm hand on one of Caroline's shoulders.

"Go on." She said.

Caroline raised her head wearily, wiping her red-rimmed eyes. "He read the piece of paper, but he didn't understand it all. He couldn't work out the symbols at the bottom…? He thought that _I_ knew what they meant, and he told me that he was going to keep me as his…._pet _or something in Tokyo to help him. I told him _no_, of course." She clasped a hand around her neck wound. "And he bit me." Caroline let out a shuddering sob. "I managed to run out and….and….I came here. I don't know why. It's not like I can _stay _here or anything. I have to go back to him, or I'll die."

"You can't go back to him." Janice protested immediately.

Caroline cast her gaze wearily onto her. "I _have _to. His blood is the only cure."

"But if you go back to him, he'll take you to Tokyo."

"I know." Caroline closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "But, if I managed to run out once, I should be able to escape from him in Tokyo. It's a big city, right?" Her voice heightened in hopefulness. Janice pursed her lips.

"It's a risk, going back to him." She pointed out.

"I don't have any other options." Caroline replied miserably. "He probably won't heal me until we board a plane on route to Japan." She let out a short, sharp bitter bark of laughter. Janice and Marilyn exchanged a long gaze, silently communicating with each other.

"I _thought_ you were lying to us before," Janice began carefully. "When I saw you with Klaus."

"I know." Caroline sighed. "I wanted to run after you and explain, but…I couldn't. I thought it would be better if I kept you away from Klaus."

Another long, tense look was exchanged between the two witches.

"Are you confident that you can escape in Tokyo, Caroline?" Marilyn asked finally. Caroline straightened in her chair.

"Uh, yes. Yes, definitely. I won't stop until I do." She promised.

"And do you still want to take on the task of killing Klaus? Now that this has happened." Marilyn gestured to Caroline's bite.

Caroline's face twisted into stone. "This has only made me want to even more."

"The symbols aren't a name, they're spell." Janice blurted out, causing Marilyn to glare at her.

"Janice!"

"I trust her, Marilyn." Janice said defensively. "He's a _monster_."

"Why are you telling me this?" Caroline asked.

"Because you said you'd escape, Caroline. And after you escape, you have to find Pearl Yung. She's the only other witch, bar Marilyn and Emily, who knows what the symbol means." Janice moved forward, looking directly into Caroline's eyes. "The symbols will mean nothing to Klaus. He'll search for their meaning for decades and never know. You have to get away from him, and make sure he's not following you, and find Pearl. Do you promise you will?"

Caroline took a deep breath. She looked into the expectant, hopeful and wary faces of Marilyn and Janice. They all wanted the same thing here, and that was Klaus, six feet under and finally paying for all of his crimes unto humanity.

"Yes. I do. I promise." A sudden shudder went up Caroline's entire body, making her gasp. Janice and Marilyn both started towards her.

"It's fine!" Caroline assured them, waving them away. "It's just the venom beginning to move through my body." A small sheen of sweat started to form on her forehead.

"You're going pale, dear." Marilyn said, looking concerned. "Is there anything we can do?"

Caroline smiled bleakly. "No. I've been through this before. I guess my times up." Another shudder started, this time making Caroline's eyes bulge. The wound stung hot. Caroline clasped her hand back to it. She was a regular to the symptoms now. She felt her vision began to distort and blur, and she struggled to stand herself up from the chair she was seated in. Caroline stumbled, and had to hold onto the table to steady herself. Janice and Marilyn fretted beside her.

"I'm fine, fine." Caroline murmured, trying to stand tall. A third shudder went through her, and she keeled over the edge of the table.

The front door caved in, dropping onto the kitchen tile floor with a giant _slam_.

Klaus leant against the now bare doorframe, smiling. "Afternoon, ladies."

"You could've knocked." Marilyn said frostily.

"I found this way more amusing." Klaus grinned.

"Stop it, Klaus" Caroline gasped, still bent over the table. Klaus turned his attention to her.

"Seems like you're dying, love."

"I'm feeling just dandy." Caroline snapped sarcastically, the words coming out in shallow, short breaths. Klaus laughed.

"Enchanting until the end." He stepped backwards slightly, gesturing outside. "Are you ready to go to Tokyo?"

"Leave her alone." Janice snapped, moving so that she was standing in front of Caroline. Klaus narrowed his eyes.

"I'll deal with you later." He warned. "Or, step outside, and I'll deal with you now."

"No!" Caroline gasped out. She struggled to stand up, leaning heavily on Janice. By now, her entire face was paper-white and sheened with a cold sweat. She could feel her the veins in her neck pump in time to her heart beat. Slowly, carefully, Caroline stumbled towards the front doorway.

She paused a few centimetres away from the doorstep and Klaus, where she knew the magical boundary lay.

"I'll come with you," She rasped. "If you leave them alone. Unconditionally. No matter _what_ happens between now and whenever."

Klaus cocked his head. "Do you really think you're in any position to be trying to make deals?"

Caroline smiled humourlessly. "Probably not." She held his eye contact, despite her eyes fluttering and fighting to close with exhaustion. She could feel Janice and Marilyn's baited breath beside her.

Finally, Klaus nodded. "Fine. Come along, then." Caroline made the last stilted breath to the door.

Janice grabbed her shirt sleeve and cupped her hand over Caroline's ear.

"Caroline…does he _like_ you? I think you can do this." She scuttled back to the safety of Marilyn. Caroline shot a wan smile at Janice. Young and idealistic, thinking that crushes could overcome cruelty. Caroline hoped that this would be the last time she encountered Janice, and that she'd never learn any different.

When she reached the doorway, Klaus grabbed her arm and pulled her up to his chest, swinging her up bride-style. Caroline resisted the urge to lay her head on his chest, despite the unwavering heaviness that had settled above her brow. She sighed restlessly. Klaus glanced down at her.

"Easy, love." He said, in a tone that bordered comforting. There was a taxi cab waiting for them on the corner of the street. As Klaus helped Caroline in, she caught Janice's gaze from where she was standing with Marilyn in her house.

"I promise." She mouthed silently, her hooded eyes staring earnestly in her. Janice nodded back. Caroline feel against the leather seats, her eyes fluttering shut.

"Can you heal me now?" She asked Klaus as he slid in beside her.

"You'll last until we board the plane."

"Wow, thanks for caring." Caroline said sarcastically, although it came out a bit more pathetic than she would have liked.

"Where to?" The cab driver twisted his head around to look at the pair. Klaus glanced at Caroline.

"Where are we headed to, love?"

Caroline sighed. She felt like scum. Like dog poo that you stepped on and tried to wipe off on the grass. She was the worst person she had ever known, bar Klaus, and she was disgusted with herself. But, she couldn't risk Liz's life.

"Pearl Yung." She answered quietly, not bothering to open her eyes. She was worse than scum.

"The airport, mate." Klaus grinned as he replied to the taxi cab. He leant towards Caroline, whispering in her ear just like Janice had.

"Good job, sweetheart. I knew you could do it."

Caroline recoiled away, twisting so that she faced the window. She dozed restlessly during the cab trip, waking with a start when it came to an abrupt stop at the curb outside the airport.

"Klaus, my stuff is at the motel," Caroline murmured quietly, not moving. Every limb felt like it was filled with lead. She could feel every heart beat as a shudder through her skin. She was boiling hot, and freezing cold.

"Actually, love, it's in the trunk." Klaus let himself out of the car and Caroline heard the boot slam, sending vibrations through her entire body. She flinched. The car door her side opened, and Klaus scooped her up easily again in his arms, supporting her with just one arm as he carried her suitcase with the other. By now, Caroline's head was so heavy and aching that she willingly leant it against Klaus' solid, warm chest, her eyes closing. Even blind, she could feel the gawking stares of all the other passengers in the airport as they wondered what on hell was going on. Klaus compelled them through the various stages of the airport. Caroline must have fallen asleep during the ordeal, because when she came to again she was already strapped into a business class aisle airplane seat. She felt _terrible_. She was dying.

"Klaus," She croaked desperately.

Klaus, who was sitting leisurely reading a magazine, cocked his head in Caroline's direction.

"I've done…everything you've asked of me." She felt pathetic. She almost wished she was dead.

"Of course, love." Klaus pulled her up slightly, wrapping her arms around his neck so that she would have better leverage as she bowed her head towards his neck and sunk her fangs in. Rich, hot liquid filled her mouth immediately, moving through her veins like sugar syrup and filling Caroline with warmth. As she tightened her grip on his neck and pushed herself closer, Caroline fought the moan that threatened to escape her lips. Klaus' blood was intoxicating. Caroline hated herself for how much she loved it. She had only ever tasted it on her deathbed, but she thought that it would taste like heaven no matter when she had it. She sometimes found herself thinking about it at random times, craving the taste. She had never tasted any blood remotely like it.

Unwillingly, Caroline detached herself from Klaus, discreetly wiping her mouth. As much as she loved it, she didn't want Klaus to know. No doubt he would find a way to use it against her somehow.

"Feeling better?" Klaus asked, a cocky smile spread on his face.

"Can I have the window seat?" Caroline said, in lieu of a response.

"Of course." Surprisingly, Klaus slid out of the seat, allowing Caroline to take his place.

"Why did you do that?" She asked suspiciously.

"Because I was trying to be nice, you sour little vamp. Have you ever seen a Tokyo skyline from the sky?"

Caroline turned her head toward the small square window, resting her forehead on it.

"No."

"Good." Klaus murmured behind her. She heard rustling as he picked his magazine back up. "I've always wanted to be the one to show you."

Caroline had watched one Adam Sandler movie, one animated Disney film and one _especially _boring movie about some sort of lawyer and court, before she finally gave in and started a conversation with Klaus. Her eyes were grainy from staring at the small screen in front of her. Ideally, she would have liked to sleep the time away, but Klaus' blood had her feeling extra-energized. In fact, she was having trouble sitting still. Shifting her position so that she was sitting cross-legged, Caroline peered at Klaus, who was sketching something.

"What are you drawing?"

"Your last movie looked very enthralling." Klaus replied, his head bent over his sketchpad.

"I'm _very _bored." Caroline said plainly.

Klaus lifted his head and grinned at her. "You're lovely when you're bored."

"What are you drawing?"

Klaus lifted his pad to show her. It was a landscape of Chelsea. If it wasn't for the tell-tale pencil lines, it could have been a photograph.

"Like it?" Klaus asked, his face smug.

Caroline tried to give an indifferent shrug. "It's alright." She paused. "I got _my_ drawing."

"Did you?" Klaus' eyes flickered back to his sketchpad.

"It came in the mail."

"Ah."

"So…what made you send it, out of the blue?"

"A friend tried to look at it. I almost ripped her head off. I realised that I didn't want anyone else to see it, bar you."

"My fiancé did."

Klaus mouth set into a grim line. "You talk as if you two are still engaged."

Caroline toyed with a piece of her hair. "Well, we _are_, I guess. I mean, in technical terms."

After a long moment of silence, Klaus fished in his jeans pocket and took out a folded up envelope. Caroline peered at it curiously, then ripped it away as she recognised the handwriting.

"Seriously?" She demanded.

"I didn't read it." Klaus said defensively.

"Oh, well _thank _you!" Caroline said sarcastically, her volume raised.

Klaus glanced around the sleepy plane. "Don't make a scene, love."

"Screw you, Klaus." Caroline snapped. She ripped open the envelope, tilting the letter inside away from Klaus so that he couldn't read. The sloppy green pen writing and childish language made it seem like it was written by a 5 year old.

As she read, Caroline's brow furrowed and she grew angrier and angrier.

_Dear Caroline,_

_So, I found out about you. I always knew you were hiding something. You were way too cold and fucked up to be sane. Luckily for you, you were hot, so I could forgive your crazy. And I found out that you had a LOT of crazy. The biggest, baddest vampire in the world pussy whipped by a little 17 year old blonde babe? Bonkers. No offence, babe, you're hot, but someone with Klaus' reputation could have ANYONE he wanted. So why are you always so angry all the time? Phil told me that you apparently rejected Klaus (a completely INSANE move on your part, hun) and he ripped apart your hometown, including all of your teenage friends. And you ran away, and he's been tracking your ass ever since. That's what Phil said, at least. I don't know, baby, but no amount of hot is worth this much baggage. Since you left, I'm re-filing the house under my name and keeping everything. I've got another girl living here now, so probably don't come back._

_-Eric_

_PS. Despite the drama, babe, it's pretty fucking sick to know that I banged a chick that wouldn't even bang the most powerful creature on this whole fucking world. Was it the charm, or the guns? LMFAO._

Caroline screwed up the letter in her hand and aimed it at the headrest of the seat in front of her.

"Bad news?"

"Eric _was _bad news." Caroline screwed herself into a positon not unlike the balled up piece of paper, tucking her feet under her knees.

Klaus hesitated. "May I read it?" He asked politely.

Caroline opened her mouth to yell at him again, but couldn't work up the effort. "Knock yourself out."

Klaus reached over and picked the letter up off the floor where it had landed. Smoothing it carefully, he scanned the piece of paper, his eyes beginning to flame.

"Right." He said carefully. He folded the paper once, then again, and settled it in his lap.

"When we land, I'll take care of it." Klaus told Caroline.

"Don't waste the effort. Eric means nothing."

"I'll decide that, Caroline."

"No, _I _will." Caroline argued, snatching the letter off his lap. "Because he was _my _fiancé."

"Right." Klaus said again. "I don't mean to pry, or judge, but may I ask how that came to happen. A man of that…_sort_. I would have never guessed you would _date _anyone like that."

"Yet you expect me to date _you_?" Caroline bit back. Klaus' face hardened.

Caroline grabbed the letter back and shoved it up the airplane's window blind. "I told you before. I surround myself with people I dislike, and then I don't really have to deal with disappointment or grief or sadness or _whatever_, when they finally leave."

Klaus turned back to her. The hardness of his face had softened, slightly.

"That's no way for you to live." He said.

"Well, how do _you _live?" Caroline asked.

Klaus smiled thinly. "You deserve better than me, Caroline."

"Yeah, I do." Caroline agreed. "Unfortunately, I don't _get_ that. I have to try make the best out of what I'm capable of having. I know how close I am to turning off my humanity. I have to surround myself with emotions that I can handle. Anger, annoyance, frustration. It keeps me…" She paused, trying to explain the jumbled thoughts in her head into words. "_Feeling_, still, I guess, but not at a level I can't handle. If I have to experience grief or heartbreak or this-this _crippling _sadness even once more, I will _snap_, Klaus. I will snap and I will flip the switch and then I will _forget_," Caroline's voice cracked. "Everyone. And I can never allow myself to do that, Klaus. I need to be thinking about them in a thousand years. When Jeremy has great-great-great-great grandkids, I want them to know about Elena. I want to tell every Bennett witch that will ever live about the wonder that was Bonnie Bennett. Every time I almost lose it, I remember the Salvatore brothers. Damon didn't believe I could handle it, which makes me need to prove him wrong, and Stefan helped me through it, which is the entire reason why I am still standing here today. And it's just not fair, that he's _not_!" Tears ran tracks down Caroline's cheeks. She was breathing hard with exertion. Oh, God. She didn't mean to say _any _of that, it had all just somehow _spilled_ out. Klaus didn't deserve to know the pain she had suffered because of him. He didn't deserve to know all of her innermost feelings that she had just spilt. Nervously, she glanced at him.

His reaction shocked her. All the colour had drained from his face, and his eyes were blank and staring straight into nothingness. He was completely still and unmoving, almost as if he was carved from marble.

His mouth parted silently. "Sometimes, I make the wrong decisions. I allow my… _temper_ to get the best of me."

"Yeah, whatever." Suddenly, being bored seemed like the more favourable option. Caroline huddled away from Klaus. Incredibly, she managed to doze off again, lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the plane moving. She was woken up by Klaus gently shaking her shoulder.

"Look out your window." He said, smiling. Caroline wiped the sleep from her eyes and pulled the window shade up, gasping as she did so. It was like a still from a movie. The sprawling metropolitan skyline was alight with thousands and thousands of glowing windows and signs and lights. It was almost as if they were flying above a starry sky. Caroline pressed her palm against the window, staring out in awe as the plane landed.


	4. A Rumour

**A/N: I have been loving the review for this fic! Everyone is getting quite deep into it, and really making me ask myself questions and think about the characters and the story. The feedback has been more insightful than any other feedback that I've ever had before, and it really pushes me to keep writing. On a more annoying note, my return to the hole in the earth that is my school means that I no longer have time to pinpoint and edit (some) of these chapters as much as I did before, so I apologise for any lacking. I still don't publish them until I've re-read and edited them a couple of times over, but the time constraints have stopped me from being my usual finnicky self.**

** R&amp;R!**

* * *

Caroline walked into their hotel room and stopped abruptly. She whirled on her heel and arched a single eyebrow at Klaus.

"Seriously?"

In the middle of their lavish Hilton hotel room was a giant king sized bed, piled high with cream and beige cushions.

Klaus moved to stand beside Caroline, putting down her suitcase.

"Obviously," He said politely. "I'll be sleeping on the couch for the duration of our stay."

"Yes." Caroline said. "You will. There were no double rooms available?"

Klaus shrugged and went out to the balcony.

"Love," He called. "Come look at this view." Huffing, Caroline followed him outside. She had to admit that the view was spectacular. She had never seen a city like this. A million lights, carved into the shape of skyscrapers and windows, flashing over and over again, bright and neon against the black of the sky.

"It's alright." Caroline allowed.

"New York is nice," Klaus comments. "But in my opinion, Tokyo always was the _real _city that never sleeps. Would you like to see it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

* * *

"I want you to know that I am _very _uncomfortable right now." Caroline hissed in Klaus' ear, her fingernails tightening around his arm. Klaus glanced back at her, an amused look on his face.

"Relax, sweetheart. You'll be nothing but admired here."

"Yeah, that's slightly why I'm uncomfortable."

"Admiration is a compliment." Klaus promised, his own eyes raking over her appreciatively. Caroline scowled at him, and was irritated by the subsequent flushing that spread up her face. They were entering a dark, musty, dirty looking club, packed to the limit with middle-aged Japanese men in suits and young skinny girls in brightly coloured frilly taffeta skirts. _Apparently_, this was the classy establishment where Klaus' top, very valuable and important, source frequented. Caroline was wearing the one and only dancing-type dress she had in her suitcase, which happened to be from when she was going through a particular hot mess stage with a bad boy warlock named James, and ended about ten inches _above _her knee. She could tell even before she left the hotel that the majority of her night was going to be spent pulling the dress down.

"Are you going to at least buy me a drink first?" Caroline asked sarcastically, but, as she was talking, a tuxedo-wearing waiter stopped by them with a margarita, handing it to a surprised Caroline.

"Compliments from the man at the bar." He ducked his head and hurried away, nervous of the furious look that had appeared on Klaus' face.

Caroline glanced at the bar. A portly man with slicked back hair and a loosened tie nodded and winked at her. Caroline shrugged and raised her glass to him, winking back flirtatiously. Klaus growled almost inaudibly beside her.

"I thought you were feeling _uncomfortable_." He grabbed her elbow and whisked her gently through the crowd, making sure she wasn't jostled by any of the crowds. At the back of the club, near the ladies bathrooms, was a plain, discreet door. Klaus led Caroline through into a small room decorated almost exactly like the main room of the club. Four business men, flanked by two scantily clad girls _each_¸ glanced up at their arrival.

"_Niklaus_!" One man, with an overbite and yellowed eyes, stood up and threw open his arms in welcome.

"So glad you have come!" Overbite grinned. His gaze slid to Caroline. "Who is your friend you have bought? You did not say? We had prepared your usual selection of Lee and April?" He gestured to two petite girls in the corner of the room, both nearly naked in matching tiny metallic bikinis. Caroline turned to face Klaus, her eyebrows raised. Klaus, in a feat Caroline had never seen before, almost _blushed_.

"Thanks, but I won't need the ladies services tonight." He said quickly, not meeting Caroline's eyes.

"Only _one _woman, Niklaus? Have you gone soft with old age?" A second man, this one thin and reedy, piped up. Caroline disliked him immediately. His eyes were like lizards and flickered up and down her, lingering on the expanse of leg she was showing. Caroline tugged her dress town self-consciously.

"Has the wolf finally found his mate?" Lizard eyes asked. "Are you tame now, my friend?"

Caroline tensed automatically, expecting Klaus to rip Lizard eye's head off for speaking to him like that. Instead, his arm reached around her shoulders and he grinned at the man.

"If any woman could…" He smirked. Caroline shrugged out of his arm, bristling.

"Who could? April?" She asked innocently. The four men laughed behind her. Klaus' jaw tightened.

"Sit. Please. Klaus, treasured guest." Overbite gestured them into the empty, cushy armchair opposite Lizard eyes and another man. Lizard eyes grinned as Caroline struggled to sit in her tight dress.

"So, what is it about this one with the yellow hair?" He asked. "I thought you liked the taste of your local flavour on your visits?"

"Is this guy serious right now?" Caroline huffed quietly in Klaus' ear. She was _way _past the point in the life where she let men objectify her and get away with it. In fact, she overpassed that point basically at the same time that she had been smothered to death with Katherine's pillow. Vampires didn't need to take shit from anyone, and she had spent many a night teaching a man a lesson for making a demeaning remark. Klaus lay a comforting hand on her knee, but Caroline pushed it off. This guy was getting _seriously _under her skin. She didn't even want to _be _in this _country_.

"Did you fly her over?" Lizard eyes asked. He raised an eyebrow as Klaus nodded. "Ooh. She must be _very_ tasty to deserve her own little holiday."

"_Alright_." Before she could think about what she was doing, Caroline was out of the armchair and lunging towards the man, her fangs bared. Klaus grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her back just as Caroline's clenched fist was inches from his smug, giggling face.

"Easy, love." Klaus cautioned. "I didn't realise you were so inclined to violence."

"Certain triggers, Klaus." Caroline replied, jerking at her restraints. Klaus gently shoved her back into the arm chair and strode up to Lizard Eyes.

"Now do you see why I like her?" Klaus asked, smiling and clapping a hand on the guys shoulder. Caroline fumed from her seat. _Seriously? _Was Klaus _defending _and _laughing_ with this masochistic offensive disgusting man?

Klaus' hand tightened. "And," He continued, a friendly smile still plastered on his face. "I think owe her an apology."

Lizard eyes snickered, not bothering to look at Klaus. "The day that _I _apologize to a stupid bitch is the day that I die." Caroline's mouth twitched.

Klaus' smiled stayed broad. "And I guess not even then." He said and, swiftly, pulled Lizard eyes' heart out of his chest. Lizard eye's gasped, falling backwards and clasping the hole where his heart had been only moments before. Gasps echoed around the room, including Caroline's, as his head lolled back and he twitched one final time.

"Any conversation surrounding my exquisite guest," He gestured to Caroline with the hand that was still holding the beating, bloody heart, "And is not _100% _positive and in her favour, should now cease to exist. Cho, would you mind?" Overbite grabbed a white handkerchief out of his pocket and passed it to Klaus, who dropped it in the middle of the room and wiped off his hands. He handed it back to Cho, who grimaced and shoved it at one of the girls beside him.

Caroline shied away from him as he settled himself back into the armchair.

"What's wrong?" He murmured.

"Seriously?" Caroline did not even have enough _breath _in her bodyto tell him what was wrong. Besides, this room full of strangers, each probably as vile as Lizard eyes, was not the place. She knew Klaus didn't mind the occasional insult from her, but she wasn't sure how he'd react to the beat down she had swimming in her head, especially in a room of Klaus' elite-looking business associates.

"So," Another man spoke up, this one wear a natty plaid suit. "What is the business you want from us, Mr Mikaelson?" His eyes flickered to his dead's friends heart, and his sickly false smile broadened.

"I'm trying to find someone."

"Who?"

"A Mrs Pearl Yung. She has information I need."

A long, complex look was exchanged between the three men.

"Mrs Yung is, err, _notorious_ in Japan." Cho said.

"What for?" Caroline asked curiously. Cho looked surprised and irritated at the interruption, and the girls looked immediately scandalised. Caroline could tell that the tone in this room was very 'men talk, women listen'. She was sure Cho would make some cutting remark, if it wasn't for Klaus next to her.

"An evil woman. Dark magic." He answered her unwillingly instead.

"So, a witch, then?" She was confused about these men's knowledge about the supernatural. Obviously, they knew about Klaus, they had called him the 'wolf' and also just kind of witnessed him murdering someone with his bare hands, but did that mean they were also clued into witches?

"Yes, a _majo_."

"Where can I find her?" Klaus asked.

Cho scratched his chin hair nervously. "Ah…that is what she is notorious for. A master of disguise, a women of shadows. Only seen by those who she chooses to be seen by."

Klaus frowned. "Are you telling me you _can't _find her?" His voice took on a dangerous tone.

"No, no!" The only man who hadn't spoken yet jumped out of his seat, shocking the tutu-clad women on his knee.

"It means, it will take us _longer_ than usual." Cho explained. "And we may need more resources than usual."

Klaus shook his head and stood up, pulling Caroline up with him. "The usual sum." He said firmly. His mouth twitched into an amused smile. "You can split it by three now, though." A nervous, on edge tittering went through the room. Caroline stiffened beside him.

"I'll be in contact with you in a week." Klaus said. "Come along, love." Klaus ushered Caroline outside of the private room. The club had switched to a brazzy, high strung house number. On the black lit dance floor, pretty girls were grinding on wealthy looking elder men. This entire club was a carbon copy of them example Caroline had seen in the room, she realised.

"Do you want to dance, Caroline?" Klaus asked. His voice was casual, as if he had no idea of how much Caroline wanted to rip into him. She smiled sweetly at him.

"Sure." When they had found a suitable little pocket in the middle of the crowd, Caroline wrapped her arms around Klaus' neck and promptly stomped on his foot, puncturing the top of his leather shoe with her stiletto.

"Oof, _careful_, love-"

"_First_ of all," She hissed in his ear, leaning up and tightening her arm as if she was whispering sweet nothing, "I don't appreciate being carted around like your little _pet _or _mate,_ whatever the hell _that _is. Second of all, that room and those men were _disgusting _and I'm disgusted in the fact that you even associate with them. Did you see the way they looked at me when I talked? Are women not _allowed _to talk or something? This is 2015, _Klaus_." Another perfectly executed stomp.

"Caroline-" Klaus began, his voice irritated.

"I'm not _done_!" Caroline snapped. "Yeah, I maybe lost it a little in there at Lizard eyes, but you took it took a _whole _new level with all that _Kill Bill_ shit. Did you think that I _wanted _you to do that? Killing is not _currency_, Klaus. You can't do it to try impress or express or whatever the fuck _else _you want to do it for. However much of a terrible person Lizard eyes was, I don't want to feel even partially responsible for his death. And you shouldn't either. Don't you understand that?"

Klaus drew back from her, unwrapping her arms and placing them on his waist. He let out a hum, his eyes hooded.

"Most people would not have been able to get more than a sentence like that out before I had ripped them to shreds."

"Oh, my _God_." Caroline nearly screamed. "Did you literally just _not _hear a word that I said?"

"I heard." His eyes were masked, but Caroline saw something flicker there.

"But you don't want _to_, do you?" Without thinking, she grabbed his chin between her fingers and forced him to look her in the eyes.

"If anyone else dared lay a finger on me…" Klaus hissed, but he didn't move out of her grasp.

"I'm the only one who ever calls you out on all of this, aren't I?"

"Don't think you're special, love. Plenty of people disagree with my way of life." Klaus said sarcastically.

"And how do you deal with that? Rip out their lungs? And how do you deal with _me_? Let me, literally, stomp all over you."

Klaus' eyes hardened and slid past Caroline. She tightened her grip on his chin, her fingernails making indents in his skin.

"Is it hard, now, Klaus? I bet for thirty years you had almost forgotten what it was like for someone, whose opinion you actually care about, hating everything that you choose to do." Klaus' eyes, reluctantly, met her own again. "And I know you care about my opinion because I know _you_. Not through and through, but _enough_. And I know that you know _me_, too. Which is why I can't understand why you _do _these things and then expect me to be…to be _grateful_." Caroline spat out the last word, releasing Klaus' face.

Klaus gritted his teeth. "Killing _is _currency in my world. It's how I paid to keep my siblings and everyone else obedient, and loyal, and willing. It's commonplace-"

"It's just a part of who you are. It's inevitable. You killing someone is ordinary, and expected, and it doesn't matter who. Do you think the more people that you kill, the less that I'll care? That I'll realise it's just a _casual _thing you do, and forgive and forget about the Worst day of my life because you weren't _trying _to ruin my life, it's just that _murder_ is a part of you, just like your _fucking _star sign!" Caroline whirled abruptly and vampire-sped out of the club, not caring if anyone saw her. Klaus went to follow her, but was jostled out of his path by a dancing couple, and lost sight of her.

As angry as she was, Caroline still had to admire the beauty of Tokyo. The fluorescent, effervescent lights created a warm, light aura in the air, hanging low above the crowds that walked briskly through the streets, yammering loudly to each other. She loved it, the entire atmosphere, and wished she could have visited it in any other way but this. Nowhere else would she even be able to consider walking down the streets, dressed as she was. She wondered idly if now would be a good time to try and escape. She couldn't see Klaus behind her. But what had the men back at the club had said? That Pearl Yung was as good as impossible to find. Maybe she should wait until they found her, and then steal her away and show her the symbols. That would be the most logical plan.

The only flaw to it was the fact that she despised Klaus with every inch of her soul, and didn't know if she could stand him for another _minute_.

"_Caroline_? Are you _serious_?" A statuesque brunette made a run towards the vampire, picking her up and spinning her around like a little kid.

"Gracie!" Caroline laughed in response. "Put me the hell down, okay?"

The girl obliged, but planted a wet kiss on Caroline's cheek. "What are you doing here?"

"It's…complicated. What about you?"

"Oh, I love it here! It's like, my fifth home! Do you want to grab something to eat?" When she saw Caroline hesitate, she quirked an eyebrow. "What? Are you not feeding or something?"

"I don't drink from humans?"

"Not even a taste and tease?" Gracie's brow crinkled. She had met Caroline about twenty five years ago, when the Worst day was still recent in Caroline's mind and she was in a dark, unreachable place. She still didn't kill humans, but she was drinking from them and compelling, an act which plagued her with guilt in the present.

Gracie had been the friend she had needed, a wild child looking for someone to party with. She hadn't minded Caroline's depressed mood or violent mood swings, or how she would spend most nights drinking until she passed out. In fact, Gracie was usually on hand to pour her another drink when Caroline could no longer see straight to do it. Gracie had been a heavy drinker too, and a big over sharer. She was once attacked by the infamous Original vampire, Klaus Mikaelson, for trying to stop him from taking a coma-d out girl back home with him. She had escaped by smashing a glass against his face, but she now only had one kidney. Gracie told the story with gleeful nostalgia.

"Aren't you worried that he'll come looking for you?" Caroline had asked once. Gracie just shrugged, but Caroline had noticed how she only used payphones, and how she once killed a man where he stood for taking a photo of her in a nightclub.

"Oh, well, some sake then?" Gracie gestured to a place directly next to where they were standing. "This place is pretty decent."

Caroline shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

Gracie ordered for them, asking for "Kunshu sake".

"You'll like it, babe. It's fruity, like you."

Caroline laughed. When the drink came, Gracie slapped Caroline's had away as she went to pour herself a glass.

"You pour the other persons first, you heathen! Are you trying to make me look like a dorky tourist?"

"I _am _a dorky tourist." Caroline pointed out, but poured Gracie a drink obligingly.

"Caroline." Caroline's shoulders sagged. Without looking, she closed her eyes. She was such an idiot. She should've made Gracie take her to somewhere far away. But it wasn't like she could actually run away from Klaus. When she did eventually do it, she would need a much better plan that just running up the street.

Gracie stiffened in front of her, her face paling to a slack white. Klaus didn't seem to recognise her though, glancing idly at her and then focusing back on Caroline.

"Don't run out on me again." He growled, encircling her arm with his hand. Caroline glared back.

"I was feeling claustrophic." She replied tartly.

"Uh…I'm just, uh, going to the bathroom, Care, if you don't mind," Gracie leapt out of her seat, banging the table and spilling sake in her rush. Klaus shot her an irritated look.

"Fine."

Gracie was half way across the restaurant when Klaus talked again, his voice casual but resonating across the mostly empty room.

"If you try and run, however, I'll just have to come and get you and _that_ would be _decidedly_ unpleasant."

Gracie's entire body tensed, before she hurried off, disappearing into the ladies bathroom.

Klaus smiled at Caroline, releasing her arm and taking Gracie's seat.

"So is she scared of me because of something that I did to her, or is it just my reputation preceding me?" He asked. Caroline gaped at him.

"Wait, you just said that because…you really don't recognise her?"

Klaus shrugged. "Not in the slightest. I just happened to notice the table almost toppling over."

"Well," Caroline began haughtily. "You _should _remember her."

"Why?"

"You almost killed her!"

"Did I?" Klaus' expression didn't change from plain indifference.

"You were trying to force a poor drunk girl to go home with you, like some sort of _predator _or something." Caroline said, her voice disgusted. She was even more appalled at telling the story then she had been at hearing it for the first time, especially at what had happened back at the club. A small crease appeared in the middle of Klaus' brow, but his face didn't move otherwise.

"Gracie asked you to stop, and in response you took out her kidney. She managed to fight you off and escape. You seriously don't remember her?"

"No, I don't. Similar things happened a lot. Gracie, is that her name?"

"That's the name she _gave_ me. I doubt it's her real one."

Klaus smiled thinly. 'Smart girl."

"You're disgusting." Caroline snarled. Gracie came shuffling back to the table slowly, shaking and her eyes red rimmed with tears. Caroline reached out a hand to comfort her.

"Pull up a chair, have a seat, dear." Klaus invited.

"Leave her alone." Caroline hissed.

"Do shut up, Caroline."

Caroline's mouth opened and snapped shut again, gobsmacked. Klaus rarely talked to her meanly, and never in such a casual way. Gracie sat down next to Caroline, her eyes down and not looking at Klaus.

"So, Lenora," Klaus said, his voice smooth as silk. "I hear you've been telling some dirty little lies about me."

Gracie's head snapped up to glare at Caroline.

"What did you say to him, you idiot?" She said, her voice angry and high pitched. Caroline blinked.

"What? What you told me? Wait-Lenora?" She turned to Klaus. "So, you _do _know her, then?"

"Yes, I do." He turned his gaze from Gracie back to Caroline. "And I'm afraid her little concoction of a sob story was bunch of bullshit." He said bluntly.

"What?"

"You and your friends weren't the first to try and kill me, love." Klaus smiled for a second. "You _are_ the cutest to date, however."

Caroline ignored the comment.

"Lenora, here, and a bunch of twenty or so eager vampires tried, about a hundred years ago. Their weapons of choice were lighters and gas fluid." Klaus snorted in amusement. "I slaughtered them all," He said casually, even as the two girls winced visibly, "but left our little Lenora to spread the word of what she did, and to warn others not to bother trying to kill me. Instead," Klaus' eyes slid in narrow, angry slits. "I see she's been spreading a swoon-worthy story of our darling hero Gracie, saving a damsel in distress from the big bad wolf."

Lenora looked wildly around the room, mentally screaming for help. The restaurant was near empty, the staff blissfully ignorant.

"How _dare _you paint me as a _predator_." Klaus hissed, his face turning poisonous. Even Caroline was frightened of him, edging backwards in her chair. He looked ready to reach out and rip her to pieces, right here in public. Through his semi-closed eyelids, she could see flashes of yellow.

Caroline suddenly remembered a conversation between her and Stefan, sometime after the Mikaelson's ball. Damon had made a snide comment about Klaus just _'compelling Caroline for a night and getting over her'._

_"I did, after all." He had added. Caroline had glared at him vehemently, but Stefan had spoken up before she could snap back at him._

_"Klaus wouldn't." He said, sounding so self-assured that Caroline had stared at him in shock._

_"How do you know?"_

_"Murder, torture, bullying, drinking blood…he's fine with it all. But he draws the line at anything borderline sexual harassment."_

_"Sort of a muddled line to walk along." Caroline had commented._

_"Yeah, sure, but that's just how it is. When my memories of Chicago came back, I remember the only time Klaus had been really angry at me, apart from the whole Rebekah thing. I was trying to compel a women back to my bedroom-"_

_"_Stefan_!"_

_Stefan had shrugged, looking guilty. "It was the 20s. Klaus sent her away and threatened to snap my neck. I made some sort of 'oh sure, like you haven't done worse' comment, and he stabbed me in the throat with a broken bottle."_

_"Oh my God. So, why is he so opposed to it?"_

_Stefan had raised an eyebrow. "Do you think he _shouldn't_ be?"_

_"No, no!" Caroline had said quickly. "But I mean, he doesn't seem to have trouble with anything else despicable."_

_"I wouldn't know, honestly. But I always kind of thought that the reason behind it was the same reason behind him being so protective of Bekah."_

Shaking her head out of the memory, Caroline studied Klaus. He looked furious, sure, but it was so terrifying because it was layered over another emotion. Indignation? _Hurt?_

"I'm going to kill you, it case it wasn't clear." Klaus hissed.

"No!" Caroline grabbed Klaus' arm, wincing as he shook her off like she was an irritating dog. "Klaus, _don't_."

Klaus didn't bother looking at her. "I will not have my name dragged through the _filth _that Lenora created."

"Then compel her! Compel her to tell the truth!"

"She's on vervain." Klaus said. Caroline bit her lip.

"Trust her." She said meekly. Klaus barked out a sarcastic, vindictive laugh.

"_Trust _her?" His eyes met Caroline's again, his gaze sarcastic.

"Trust _me_, then." Caroline amended herself. "Or, do this for me. I know that you know that this is important to me."

"You've made your feelings about who I am very clear. Why should I bother?"

Caroline sighed and stood up, pushing her way out of the booth. It was no use. She couldn't stop him. He didn't have any humane part to even begin reasoning with.

"Maybe you shouldn't." She muttered, stalking out of the restaurant. She jammed the traffic light button, waiting for the lights to change. Klaus appeared behind her shoulder.

"I'm going back to the Hotel. You can wash the blood off your hands there." Caroline said sarcastically.

"I didn't do it."

Caroline didn't turn around. "Why not?"

"Because you're right, love. I do care about your opinion. And I've already got enough things working against me, I hardly need anything else." The lights flickered green and Klaus overpassed her, walking quickly.

"Wait." Caroline matched her pace with his. "Thanks."

Klaus glanced briefly at her. "Anytime, sweetheart."

* * *

The Hilton was only a five minute walk, but when they reached it the elevator was malfunctioning and the staff told them that they would have to climb the stairs. Caroline cried out.

"Noooo." She moaned, the hours of the night catching up to her in one swell crash. "My shoes are killing me." Klaus picked her up and began carrying her, just like before at the airport. Caroline started.

"Klaus! I didn't mean that…put me down!"

"What, and hear you moan some more? No thank you."

"Klaus!"

"Do shut up, love." It was the second time he had told her to stop talking, but this time his voice was laced with amusement.

"Well, _well_. I can't say I was expecting this, Nik." A posh, accented voice dripping with disdain was waiting for them at the door of their hotel room, belonging to the one female Caroline despised more than any other girl in the world. Rebekah.


	5. An Agreement

**A/N: Ok, so first of all apologies because it's been _months_. To tell you all the truth, I got caught up with one thing after another and almost forgot all about this. I'm back, and if there are people still interested and following this story, please review so I know and I'll continue writing. **

** For people reading _In Chains, I _haven't started writing again for that one as of yet, I may do in the future and will let you know. **

**Thank you if you are reading this now, for being patient! Please review, even criticizm, just so that I know people are still wanting more!**

* * *

"Rebekah." Klaus released Caroline immediately, who stumbled to the floor and righted herself quickly. She glared at the two Originals. In truth, she hadn't put that much thought into Rebekah since the Worst day. She had just, stupidly, assumed that the girl was still daggered. Hadn't Klaus left her daggered for a hundred years before, after all, for something a lot less than that?

Yet here Rebekah stood, alive and healthy. She was tanned, with a new bob cut, watching Klaus and Caroline with a curious yet amused smirk. As Caroline glared at her, her mouth slid into a full crocodile-grin and she tapped an acrylic claw against it, repeatedly. _Tap, tap, tap_.

"What are you doing here, Bekah?" Klaus asked.

"I received a message from an informer. _Big Brother arguing with blonde teenage vampire at Hilton Hotel, Tokyo_." Rebekah shrugged. "It certainly got me thinking. I only remember one certain blonde teenager who dared talk back to the Original Hybrid," Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

"You have informers on me?" Klaus hissed, his tone flattening.

Rebekah ignored him. "Caroline. It's been too long."

"It's not beenlong enough." Caroline snapped. "When the hell were you undaggered?"

Rebekah's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Hmm? Oh, well, barely a week after the whole fiasco. Klaus wanted someone to coddle him a bit about the whole '_Caroline, my love_' situation, and Elijah wasn't humouring him, apparently. Unfortunately for him, neither was I."

"_Rebekah_." Klaus hissed angrily, but it was too late. Caroline whirled to face him, her fists clenching at her side.

"Are you serious, Klaus?" She demanded, the insults firing like bullets. "I didn't realise you were sucha self-pitying, pathetic _loser_."

Klaus glared at her, instantly terrifying. "Say another word and I'll throw you down the elevator shaft."

"You were just carrying her _up _the stairs earlier." Rebekah interjected, stepping into the middle and luckily cutting Caroline off before she could earn herself a free flight down the elevator.

"Don't tell me you two are _still _in the absolutely exhausting game of love-hate." Her eyes cut to Caroline, her angry glare more serious than her seemingly light-hearted tone. "You may still just look like a teenage girl, but you two really are old enough to stop playing such high school games."

Caroline was _so_ far past the mood of being played with. Usually she was willing to banter insults back and forth with Rebekah for a good half an hour, but in her current mood, Rebekah would be lucky to say another comment and leave with her perfect head attached to her body.

"_You _can talk. Plus, I hardly think me being kidnapped and held against my will is me playing games." She said cuttingly.

Rebekah's face was a mask of surprise, almost comically so.

"Nik?" She turned to her older brother. "I thought we had an agreement in terms of the perky blonde. Perhaps there was something that you'd care to explain?"

Klaus looked in the same mood as Caroline. "Remember the Hedden's witch stake?"

"Was there a different reason for me being in Australia these last three months?" Rebekah arched an eyebrow.

"Caroline was looking for it also."

"But you two haven't spoken in…oh. _Oh_." Grinning as it dawned on her, Rebekah turned back to the other blonde girl. "Well, Barbie, I didn't know you had it in you. Way to pick 'em, Nik. She's a really man _killer_." Rebekah let out a hoot.

"Oh, shut it, you dried out wen-"

"Then again, I guess that's still up for debate. Would you have been able to go through with it, Caroline, right to the very end?"

Caroline bristled. "Of course." Klaus' brow furrowed.

"And yet, the same man that you claim you would be able to kill is also the man that just carried you like his bride up a flight of hotel stairs."

Caroline felt every muscle in her body tighten. "_Leave_, Rebekah." She hissed. "No one wants you here."

Rebekah let out a bark of laughter. "Oh, I'm positive of that. No one ever wants a third wheel for whatever this _is_. I'll scarper soon, back to my urgent mission, don't worry, Nik. I wouldn't mind a quick tour of Tokyo though."

"You've been here six times." Klaus said frostily.

Rebekah's eyes glittered mischievously. "What do you know, I have indeed. Not with such an odd pair though. What else are you two mixed up lovebirds going to get up to?" She asked pointedly. Caroline's face flushed red.

"Piss off." She pushed passed Rebekah and went to slam herself into her hotel room. Rebekah caught her arm, her nails digging into her bare skin.

"You haven't aged well, Caroline." Her eyes narrowed as she studied her face. "Then again, I'm surprised you're still aging at all."

"_Rebekah_." Klaus' voice turned deadly. Caroline glanced over at him. He was mean looking, but something else too. She noticed his shifting feet on the plush carpet. He was uncomfortable. She looked back at Rebekah. The Original blonde was no longer teasing.

"Even if you can't go through with it, Caroline, which I don't believe you can, do something with yourself. You're a sad excuse for the annoying bitch you used to be." For a second, pity flashed in Rebekah's eyes. Caroline wrenched her arm away.

"Leave me alone." She spat.

Rebekah shrugged. "That's what I made Klaus promise, yes."

"_Enough_, Rebekah." Klaus moved between the two girls, shoving Rebekah backwards towards the opposite wall. Caroline took the momentary distraction to slam and lock the hotel door, trying to keep out the two cruel, but utterly _confusing_, siblings out.

* * *

They happened sporadically and rarely, recurring only when Caroline was beginning to be able to finally sleep peacefully again. Then they came back and filtered into her brain, reminding her that she was broken and would _never _find peace again. She hated them. Instead of being in charge like she was when she was awake, when she was the huntress, the predator – she was vulnerable. She was more afraid of them that she was of anything else in this world.

In her nightmares, Bonnie and Elena and Stefan were all standing in front of her, just like how she remembered them. As she leaned forward to greet them _Hey _to be able to say goodbye _one _more time…their faces warped in front of her, their mouths stretching open into a bloodcurdling scream. Their shirts darkened with red liquid, and their hands flew up to clutch gaping, oozing wounds in their chests. Their pumping hearts lay a few feet in front of them, lying in a pool of blood.

"_Help us, Caroline_."

If she could _just _reach their hearts and put them back together she'd be able to save them and they'd be alive, but she _couldn't move_. She screamed, and she cried, and she pushed and pushed and _pushed_, but she just. Couldn't. _Move_. Her feet were quicksand and her mouth was glue, preventing her for even calling to them.

The nightmares always ended the same; Caroline eventually giving up, her legs giving way and collapsing just out of arm's length of her friends. And her friends, wailing in pain, slowly dying and disappearing in front of Caroline's eyes.

Caroline shot up in bed with a shout, her entire body slick with cold sweat.

"No, no, _no, no_." She kicked off her blankets and tried to frantically crawl backwards, her arms twisting behind her to hold onto the headrest, which began to crack under her grip. The images of her friends faces continued to loom in front of her even though she was awake, the last of their lives draining from their irises.

"No, _NO, NO NO_!" Her heel caught in the edge of her sheet and caught, and she shrieked, flailing uselessly in an attempt to free herself.

"Caroline!" Klaus leapt up from his makeshift bed on the couch, grabbing her arms and trying to stop her kicking.

"It's ok, it's ok." He murmured soothingly, his hand stroking down her damp blonde hair.

"_Bonnie…_" Caroline whimpered, clawing at Klaus, her mind still whirling in the midst of the nightmare. "Elena…Stefan...I'm _sorry_."

Klaus' hand stilled. He took in a deep breath.

"Ssh." He said, wrapping his arms around Caroline, trying to still her. "You're awake. You're ok. You're in a hotel room, in Japan. Ssh."

Caroline's cheeks were stained with dirty grey mascara tear tracks. "_I'm sorry_. I can't save you. I tried. Please. _Please_." She sobbed.

"Ssh. Ssh." Gently, like cradling a child, Klaus pulled Caroline backwards onto his lap. He tightened his grip on her, his lips brushing against her hair as he murmured soothing noises. Caroline flopped against him like an abused rag doll, her sobs coming out in heaving, stilted breaths.

"You're in Tokyo. Ssh. You're alright, Caroline."

Having exhausted herself, Caroline's eyes fluttered back shut, but she knew she wouldn't fall asleep again. She concentrated on matching her breaths with the slow rising and falling of Klaus' bare chest, pressed up against her back. She concentrated on the surrounding warmth and safe feeling she was feeling enveloped in his strong arms, supporting her even as she lent her entire body weight against him.

_How can I find comfort in them monster that did this to me in the first place?_

"I'm sorry, Caroline. You're safe, you're okay. Relax."

_He broke me. He broke the person that I was. He turned me into this, a hysterical mess, forever plagued by the Worst day of my life._

"You are strong. You're full of light, and you can keep your memories away. You're okay, Caroline, I'll make sure of that. I'm sorry."

_I know you are, Klaus._

_Maybe…_

_Maybe the person I am now is so broken that I cannot be comforted by anyone else but he who broke me. _

"Why did you do this to me?" Caroline whispered, her voice a broken whisper. Her cheek, hot and damp, nestled into the crook of his arm. Klaus tightened his grip around her.

"I don't know." He answered, after a long pause. "I couldn't see straight, past the red."

Caroline knew exactly the 'red' he was talking about. A haze that seemed to settle in front of her eyes, and cling to her heart, not allowing to beat the way it should. When not plagued by despair or grief, it was the same 'red' she saw when she pictured her friend's death. It was the same 'red' she saw during bar fights and under the palms of grabby vampires and on the streets after a night she couldn't remember. It was the same 'red' that had fuelled her on this ridiculous, unfortunate mission in the first place.

She felt the tears start up again, a continuous, small snivel. "It's not fair that Bonnie died like that." Bonnie's face was the one that never left, not even when she was happy. She loved them all equally, but Elena and Stefan and her (and yes, even Damon) had all cheated death once or more times. They had all died and gotten another second chance. Technically, they were all living on borrowed time. But Bonnie was human, a witch, maybe, but a living, breathing human with a beating heart that had never stopped for more than a moment. She didn't deserve to die with the vampires, her heart brutally ripped out, when she was still such a delicate being that she could have died from eating raw chicken. It wasn't fair.

"I've come to regret killing a Bennett witch, and from more people than you, darling." Klaus let out a bitter laugh, muffled against the top of her hair.

"I should hate you."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to leave you?"

"Yes."

"Right now?" His arms slackened around her for a second, a gust of wind from the hotel's open window filtering into the space where his skin had been seconds ago. A shiver went up Caroline's spine.

"No." She whispered, the controversial word hovering over her lip's edge, not wanting to be spoken.

His envelope resumed it former tightness, Caroline's small body being covered from head to toe in a comforted warmth.

* * *

Neither of them had moved a muscle for the last four hours. Caroline had counted every second, even as she started to doze. She knew that Klaus was awake too, his heart beating against her spine. Fierce sunlight filtered through the bottom and sides of the curtains, demanding to be noticed.

"How did you get in? I locked the door." Caroline murmured, still not moving an inch. Klaus let out an abrupt laugh.

"I booked the hotel. I have my own key, love."

"Oh." Caroline shifted abruptly, climbing out of Klaus' arms and crossing to fling open the windows. Brightness flooded in, lighting up the dim room. Klaus leant back, against the now broken headrest, watching her.

"Where's Rebekah?" Caroline asked.

"I'm sure around here somewhere, waiting for another chance to put her foot in where she's not wanted."

Caroline hesitated. "And the agreement about me?"

Klaus sighed. "You picked that up, I see. I was rather hoping you didn't." He stood up, crossing the room to stand in front of her. Caroline realised for the first time that he wasn't wearing a shirt, and the proximity of bare chest in front of her caused her to falter backwards slightly.

"The truth always comes out, doesn't it, love?"

"What are you talking about?" Caroline asked. She was over his vague answers. She had been in the dark for too long, being unknowingly tracked in Chelsea and ostracized in the Japanese nightclub. She wanted to know what was going on, _for once_, especially since it always seemed to be about her _anyway_.

Klaus idly tucked a loose strand of Caroline's hair behind her ear. She flinched his hand away. A small, sad smile etched over his face.

"I doubt you would know, but Rebekah's still been living in Mystic Falls all this time." He said.

Caroline felt bile rise in her throat at the mere mention of the town's name.

"Despite her mocking bravado she seems the need to fling everywhere, my darling sister hasn't spoken more than monosyllabic sentences to me until recently. After the whole Emily fiasco, I enlisted her and Elijah's help in tracking down the stake. Rebekah agreed, on one condition," Klaus paused, scratching at his chin.

"What?"

"She'd been keeping an eye on you apparently. She was shocked that I hadn't tried to get back into contact with you, and made me promise not to. I agreed. But-"

"But what?"

Klaus smiled ruefully. "It was an easy promise to make at the time. You were – _are - a_ sore spot for me, Caroline. I had my own people looking out for you, only mine, unlike Bekah's, were only to give me information on you if you were in immense danger. I didn't want to know what you were doing, or who you were doing it with. I had my drawings, and my memories to satisfy any craving I ever had to look at you." Suddenly, Klaus' hands were cupping either side of Caroline's chin, his thumb stroking softly against her chin. "And then I was sitting in a bar in Chelsea, minding my own business, and you walked in the door. My sketches are rubbish, love, a mere mockery of the radiance you are. All it took was one real life look, and anything I ever said to Bekah was instantly forgotten." Klaus eyes narrowed, the intensity of his gaze stilling Caroline's breath. The air crackled around them.

"I've been to the worst places on earth, Caroline. I've been to slums and seen the living scum on the streets, eating dirt, drinking mud, degrading themselves to anything and everything for a syringe load of a chemical rush. You are walking heroin, love, addictive and deadly. You make me lose my mind. Imagine being so captivated by something that you would give the world to it. And then imagine, destroying everything in one heated moment you can never take back," Caroline shut her eyes. "And the person you are hooked on, who feeds your soul and makes every day more worth living, turning her back on you. I thought I could never fail anyone more than I failed my dear little Henrik. And then came the day when I failed you, so spectacularly, that I managed to do the impossible and dim down some of your light that shines so bright." Klaus pulled Caroline towards him, brushing his lips across the top of her head. "I apologize Caroline. Please believe me on that, if nothing else."

Silence befell the room. Caroline opened her eyes. Klaus was gone.


	6. A Conversation

Caroline pounded down the bustling sidewalk, her mind running a thousand miles a minute. She had only been in Tokyo for _one _day, and already it was like her entire life had been turned inside out. Klaus, like always, had come into her life like a wolfish whirlwind, sweeping her off her feet and tumbling down an abyss of confusion. She wanted to continue despising Klaus, find the stake as quick as she could, kill him and be done with it. But now it sounded like finding Pearl would take a while, and Klaus was doing his very best to get under her skin all the while. She wasn't going to believe his stupid soppy little speech. She wouldn't allow herself. She was _not _going to feel sympathy for the monster.

Even if…No. She needed a drink, or perhaps four or five. Shaking her head, she ducked into the nearest doorway and made her way to the counter.

"Well, yes, I know this is a coffee shop, but all I want is something substantial added. Whiskey? Scotch? It's five o'clock in America, probably! Can you not help me at all?"

The small girl behind the counter, who clearly didn't speak any English, looked confused and slightly frightened as Caroline banged her hand against the counter.

"Forget it!" Caroline growled, knowing she was being ridiculous but irrationally angry anyway.

"Five of _those_." Caroline stabbed a finger against a glass jar full of sushi-shaped cookies. Quickly, the girl filled a paper bag and gave it her, turning to the next customer before Caroline had even left the front of the queue.

"Wow, I guess you still _do _have a lot of giant bitch left."

Caroline turned, half a cookie shoved in her mouth, to see Rebekah, leaning smugly against the edge of the counter. "Bite me." She snarled, shoving past her and out the shop. Rebekah was right behind her, her arm snaking through Caroline's and snagging a cookie.

"Ooh, feisty." Rebekah grinned. "So, I was in the neighbourhood and I happened to overhear your relentless bullying of the poor little barista,"

Caroline flushed.

"Anyway," Rebekah continued. "Since you're obviously gagging for it, I know a place we can get a drink."

"And why would I want to go anywhere and drink with you? I'm sure I could compel myself better company than that. Or y'know, make friends like a normal person."

Rebekah snorted. "It's been long time since you've had any real friends, sweetheart. Besides, judging from the surprising lack of Nik hanging around like a clinging odour of _mutt_, I'm sure there's something you're dying to spill out over a bottle of wine."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Fine. No more talking until we're both drunk, then." It was a pointless request for Rebekah, of course. She kept up a constant incessant chattering the entire five minute walk, still talking even as they entered the dark, dingy empty excuse of a bar. She rattled off something in perfect Japanese to the surly bartender, then proceeded to lead Caroline through the thin room to a cramped booth near the back.

'Uh," Caroline hesitated and pulled backwards. "Maybe we can try not play up to the whole vampire-coffin thing for a second and sit in something resembling natural light? Outside? A bar with people, perhaps?"

"My darling brother Nik is not planning on leaving you for long, I can assure you of that. Big city plus murderous object of his affection doesn't equal a winning combination of his do you think I chose this disgusting place. Me and you need to have a good little chat, I think." With Original strength Caroline didn't even bother trying to fight, Rebekah wrapped her fingers tightly around Caroline's wrist and propelled her into the back booth.

"Sit. Oh, thank you. Hmm, lovely." Rebekah accepted the two bottles of wine the bartender had bought over, and glasses. She spat into hers, using the hem of her shirt to wipe the inside of it. She nodded towards Caroline's.

"I'd advise it."

"Caroline wrinkled her nose at the visible dirt tracks on the inside of her glass.

"So, hopefully, you picked up the hints I was dropping last night." Rebekah began, getting right into the heart of what she wanted to discuss. "You would have had to have been an imbecile if you didn't."

"Do you mean the deal between you and you brother? I did happen to notice that, thanks. As did Klaus." Caroline poured half her bottle in her still dirty glass. A little bit of filth couldn't hurt. She had sunk to some lows in her life, but she had yet to spit in public and maybe it was the one thing she could hold onto.

"And is that why my dear overprotective brother is not with you at this present moment?"

Caroline shrugged. "I have no idea where he went."

Rebekah leant forward suddenly. "Stop acting so glib, Caroline, it's _very _irritating. I'm not here to _gossip, _I'm here to talk. Obviously, my selfless deal with Nik was made with him in mind. He turns into a pathetic blubbing mess with you, all notions of adoration and beauty and whatever other ridiculous feeling your plain face can draw out for him. He was doing a good job of convincing himself he was over you, sporadic outbursts of angry massacres aside. Elijah was getting sick of cleaning those up, let me tell you. But," Rebekah flicked a piece of hair back from her face. "I knew that as soon as he saw you again, all five foot coil of honey cheerleading pep, he wouldn't be able to leave your side again. A man's ego can only take so much, Caroline. And I was right, wasn't I? What drabble did Nik spill to you? That he feels responsible for you? Wants you? Did he drop the L-bomb?"

"No," Caroline said sulkily, carefully glossing over the truth. _Technically_, Klaus hadn't said what Rebekah had just asked. "And I'm not exactly a cheerleader anymore, if you haven't noticed." Caroline gulped down the remnants of her glass and poured another. Rebekah let out a theatrical groan.

"Oh, who _couldn't _notice? Your bottom lips dragging on the floor so much I'm surprised you haven't stepped on it." She sighed. "But, I get it. I made Nik promise not to see you again for your sake too, Caroline. Don't forget I was there that day too."

Caroline felt every muscle in her body go tense and rigid. Her face struggled to find composure, her lips flattening into a thin line.

"I'm here to get drunk, and listen to whatever family problems you have. We are not having this discussion now Rebekah, or I'm leaving and you'll literally have to tear this place to shreds to keep me here."

Rebekah, in an uncharacteristic and surprising move that completely caught Caroline off guard, lay her hand over Caroline's on the table.

"You don't have to say anything, just hear me out. Firstly, Klaus doesn't deserve to be back in our life. He's my brother and I'm stuck with him, but you don't have to be. I mean it, Caroline," She said sincerely. "I haven't seen genuine feelings in Klaus since his infatuation for you, but that doesn't mean you have to return the feelings."

"Shouldn't you be trying to make your brother happy?" Caroline asked, withdrawing her hand. She couldn't tell if Rebekah was being genuine or not. Knowing the Originals, this could all be one giant plot to draw out information or trick her into saying the wrong thing that could be used against her later. Rebekah frowned.

"Of course. Still, I feel partially responsible for…_that_. And I just, I don't know, wanted to speak to you."

"Well, obviously, it's too late to never see him again." Caroline shrugged, trying to act casual. "I'll leave when I find the stake and kill him."

Rebekah laughed bitterly. "Unfortunately, family rules say I'd have to kill you myself if you tried that. You wouldn't though, Caroline. I gained another reason to want you two to stay apart."

"Please, enlighten me. I'm having so much fun sitting in this dark cave listening to you. Is my bottle already empty?" Caroline shook the last remaining drops of liquid luck into her glass and gulped it down. Rebekah ignored the snipes, smiling pleasantly as she continued.

"I get what you've been doing these last couple of decades, Caroline. Surrounding yourself with losers, drunks, druggies, nobodies…all people you couldn't give two tosses about so that when you leave or they do, no one's better or worse off for it. It's smart. A bit tragic, but I guess we all do what we need to too survive."

Caroline tried not to show on her face how irritated and surprised she was that Rebekah had just figured out the last thirty five years of her life in a couple of sentences.

"So?" She snapped. "And can we wrap this up? I want to leave."

"So, in less than a week you've let the one person you have feelings for left in the world tumble head first back into your life-"

"I don't have _feelings _for Klaus." Caroline interrupted angrily, having had enough. She stood up, trying to shove her way out of the booth. Rebekah pulled her down easily.

"Oooh, _that _reaction wasn't at all suspicious." She said sarcastically. "Pure hatred, vehemence, loathing…lust, desire, a lingering teenage crush. Whatever you want to call it. Doesn't concern me, and doesn't make that much of a difference. The point is that after years and years of co-existing with people you really couldn't care less about, you flung yourself straight back in to the crossfire with the very Original vampire that probably ignites more feelings in you that you knew that you had. Watching you two talk is like watching the most obfuscated tug and war in the world."

"Fine. So my feelings for him are… _complicated_. What does it mean when someone slaughters all your friends but leave you alive? No matter what else I feel, hatred over takes it all, I promise you."

Rebekah waved a flippant hand. "I told you, it doesn't matter. You were the vampire who had the most humanity, always, Caroline. You've tried to cut yourself off for so long, make yourself disconnected form everything from everyone. Then you made the vital mistake of letting the only person in who still challenges you back in-"

"I didn't let him in, I was kidnapped."

"Exactly. Excitement, terror, frustration…isn't it all consuming, Caroline? Even angry, aren't you _enthralled _at what could happen next. You don't want to live without feeling these ever again. You don't want to go back to your drunken useless night with faceless people you found so boring."

"Don't tell me what I want to do!" Caroline interrupted, her voice sounding pathetic even to hear. Rebekah's words were hitting a raw nerve she didn't want to think about.

"You're like Nik," Rebekah continued. "You could try and convince yourself that you were doing the easiest thing by shutting yourself off, until you expose yourself back to it and then you realise that, actually, going back to that pathetic, lie of a life is actually the hardest thing. You and Nik are in the same position. Neither of you are able to give each other up now."

Caroline felt a new sharp pang at each hard-hitting word. Rebekah wasn't right. No, she wasn't.

Was she?

The _last _thing Caroline wanted to be was spend any more time with Klaus. If he gave her the option, she would leave Tokyo right now. But, then again…where would she go? Not back to Erik. That bridge had been burnt. Not back to Gracie, or _Lenora_, or whatever her name was. There had been so many ex-boyfriends, ex-fiances, even one ex-husband named Toby who had fed only on redhead teenage girls and had twenty three goldfish. Her skin had crawled every time Toby touched her. Her skin ignited when Klaus did.

But that was because she hated him. That was the _only _reason, she told herself.

She wasn't much of a clubber. She much preferred the balls, the opulent and over the top parties and dances Mystic Falls had seemed to throw every other week. She wondered if they still did that now. Caroline too old now and over getting blackout drunk and waking up fangs deep in some random vampire. She was over the fake domestic life with some disgusting leech she couldn't look in the eye. She was over holding the hair back for friends she barely even knew the names of, bailing them out of jail, buying and compelling them drinks all night and then watching as they all fell prey, one after another, to the leery and grabby hands of guys, wolves, vampires, alike, just as she did.

But just because she didn't want to go back to that, didn't mean she wanted to move forward with _Klaus_. Surely there was an option three? When had her life turned into such a hopeless mess?

Suddenly, a white hot searing pain burnt through her skull. Caroline let out a wail as her hands flew up automatically to cradle her skull, her flesh seeming to sizzle as the fire consumed her brain. It was a Bonnie migraine, times a thousand. Next to her, she could vaguely sense Rebekah doing the same thing she was.

"Stupid lying bitch." A heavily accented Asian voice seemed to float, disembodied, over her.

"Leave the ugly one, she's an Original. Take this one." Two rough hands encircled Caroline's arms like vices, wrenching them from the cradle position she had on her head, and dragging her out of the restaurant. The bartender was slumped over his position behind the counter, obviously dead. Rebekah was still doubled over in pain. She struggled to meet her eyes with Caroline just before she was dragged outside. As soon as the first gentle rays hit her body, Caroline felt like she was enfulged in flames. Her daylight ring wasn't working. She screamed, unable to hold her tongue for a second longer. Rebekah shot her one long, last pitying glance.

"_NIK-KLAUUUS!" _Caroline heard the echo of Rebekah yelling as she was pulled entirely outside and into the flames that seemed to eat her alive, slowly, slowly, until everything turned black.

* * *

Caroline blinked, disorientated, slowly taking in her surroundings and trying to piece together what had happened. She was tied to a sturdy wooden chair, her arms and legs bound together behind her by a rope that seemed to sizzle through her flesh. Vervain, then. They knew she was a vampire, obviously. The room was windowless and a harsh off-white colour, empty and large, with ugly naked bulbs sticking out from the ceiling. There was a small table set up in front of Caroline, holding a small camera on a tripod, and a laptop with the screen facing her. Her muscles clenched. This didn't spell well. Why did Rebekah scream her brother's name when Caroline was being taken? Was he there? Was she calling for help, or was Klaus one of the hands dragging her outside in the burning sun? Or, was this an enemy of his, holding Caroline for collateral damage?

"Traitor vampire _bitch_." The harsh snap of the earlier women's voice resonated in the room. A short, pretty Japanese girl with a blunt bob and translucent skin walked through a small door Caroline hadn't noticed before. Caroline quickly noted the only point of escape and tucked it in her brain for future reference, before turning to face the girl.

She stopped in front of her prisoner and spat viciously onto Caroline's forehead. Caroline flinched and, unable to wipe it away with her bound hands, felt as it slowly tricked down past her cheek and onto her chin.

"_You_," The lady screamed, stabbing a finger into Caroline's chest. "Are traitor _scum_! Worthless! Liar! Manipulative little blonde bitch!" The same searing pain Caroline had felt in the restaurant seemed to delve through her temple and wrap itself around her brain. Caroline's eyes squeezed shut and her chin fell forward, her hair flopping over the front of her head like a useless protective cover. An unwilling groan of pain slipped through Caroline's lips as the pain increased. It seemed like it was squeezing her brain to the point of exploding into a million pieces.

"_Stop_," Caroline heard the unmistakable British snarl. _So he was part of this. Why was he doing this to her? _

"Hurt her anymore, and I'll make sure your death is more slow and painful then you could ever imagine." Klaus growled.

The pain stopped suddenly, and Caroline opened her eyes, fully expecting to see Klaus standing next to the Asian witch. He wasn't.

"Where are you?" She asked.

"Idiot." The witch snorted.

"I'm here, Caroline. Look at the screen." Caroline followed the sound of the voice and found herself looking into the laptop screen. Previously black, now Klaus was on it, half the screen covered by something dark.

"Move your thumb off your camera." She suggested softly. The screen fumbled and went black for a second, and then he was clearly there, his eyes bloodshot and his facial hair mussed on his face. When he spoke, his voice was tense and hard, thinly veiled by an attempt to to make his tone sound comforting.

"Rebekah said you were ambushed. She's tracking your scent now. I'll be there within the day. And when I do," His voice changed abruptly to a snarl. "I'll find out who has you, and I'll make sure anything they've done to you is done to them _multiple _times."

The Asian witch seemed to find Klaus' speech high amusing. She laughed, a high pitched musical trill, and moved behind Caroline so that she was in view of the video camera.

"It's not my fault you two are bad detectives. You should never let the person you're looking for find you first."

It dawned on Caroline and Klaus at about the same time. Caroline struggled to turn around so she could look at the whole elusive reason they were in Tokyo, as Klaus was shaking his webcam and screaming into it.

"_Pearl Yung_," He spat.

"Does my reputation precede me?" Pearl laughed. "I hope not. I'm always trying to improve myself" From out of her pocket she whipped out a rag and pressed it onto Caroline's face, holding it taut against her skin. Caroline's voice gurgled at the back of her throat in a sudden gasp of fright and pain. It was_ burning_, her eyebrows, her lips, her nose, and her eyeballs which she hadn't had the chance to shut first. She wanted to scream, but she didn't also want to open her mouth more and taste the vervain that was singing her flesh.

"_Don't touch her!" _Klaus snarled. The rag was lifted off and Caroline felt her entire face sting raw and sharp for a second in the open air, until it began to heal again. Klaus was half hybrid, his fangs and veins protruding, his eyes a sickly shade of yellow.

"I'm okay." She murmured weakly to him. "I've had worse." Unfortunately, Pearl heard her.

"Have you?" She tutted, sounding disappointed. "Well, we can't have that." The rag was pushed over her face again, and she felt it being tightened and tied at the back of her head. She couldn't see through it, couldn't taste, couldn't breathe. It was just constant burning. She thought she could feel the bones in her cheek against the coarse cotton material, as her flesh slowly sizzled off.

"_Get that off her!" _She heard Klaus snarl. "I'll make you regret the day you were born, Pearl."

"She deserves it! Lying, manipulative, deceitful vampire monster. She lied to my dear friends, lied about everything she was and she stood for."

Beneath her suffocating mask, Caroline sagged. Pearl was right. The witches had found out about her indiscretion. Caroline had lied to Janice and betrayed Marilyn. In a way, she probably deserved this.

"Don't kill her!" A new voice joined the tangle. Blind, Caroline recognised the high-pitched British whine. Rebekah.

"Why are you back? Have you failed already?" She heard Klaus growl.

"There was a block, Nik. We'll have to try something else." Rebekah bit back, her tone venomous. Caroline wondered if Klaus was threatening Rebekah. Pearl laughed, a startling sound from behind her. Even worse than the never-lifting pain was the blindness the mask gave her, shutting her off from her strongest sense and making her disorientated to what was going on around her.

"I'm not going to kill her, silly girl. I'm going to kill _you_, and _you _too. This one," She pushed Caroline's head forward roughly. Caroline heard Klaus hiss from the computer.

"This one," Pearl continued. "Would probably not mind dying so much. My friends filled me in on her terrible life. Because of you?" Another hiss.

Pearl laughed. "Yes, ok. Why is she alive still? No, no dying for her. I'm just going to break her, and leave you with the pieces. And _then _I kill you, Klaus." And with that, the crippling, unthinkable pain filled Caroline's skull again, and she screamed.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks everyone for all the reviews and the new followers/favourites! Made me so inspired to get writing and get his up as soon as possible for all of you! I hope you enjoy, and keep letting me know what you think! Even though I have a rough storyline in my head, alot of you offer me new ideas that actually end up altering the story later on, so don't be afraid to tell me what you think. **

**R&amp;R :)**


	7. A Breaking Point

It went on for days, day and night running into each other with no source of light coming through the windowless walls. Pearl was the only indicator of time as she came and left, racking headache after blistering headache until Caroline screamed. On the other side of the camera, Rebekah ran in and out of the screen on one hopeless task after another, each time bullied by Klaus for not being successful. Klaus had found out how to switch the live stream of Caroline onto his (seemingly never dying) cell phone and Caroline spent a good portion of her time watching a blurry screen and listening to the sounds of Klaus running from place to place, person to person, demanding answers, threatening lives and inflicting pain in search for her. At each dead end, he'd train the camera on his face, trying to distract from his yellowed eyes with a fake comforting smile.

"Not that one, love. I'll be with you soon, I promise." And then he would be off, the laptop screen showing a fuzzy image of his running legs as he moved onto the next dead-end lead.

The physical torture began to dull for Caroline, the constant pain becoming nothing but a tedious background ache. Luckily for her, Pearl was decidedly not so creative when it came to torture, sticking almost purely with various vervain-coated objects as her tactic. Despite the length of it, whereas Caroline was sued to being saved within a day of her torture, it was nothing Caroline hadn't been before, and actually paled in comparison to some of her more inventive torturers in the past. On nights that Caroline was feeling bad and trying to have a pity party, she used to inflict similar pain willingly on herself, sculling a cup of vervain and making herself feel grateful that she could still feel pain at all, while her friends lay dead and rotting. Pearl was gone a lot, only stopping in occasionally to yell at Caroline for being a traitor and mock Klaus as she would stab Caroline with a number of various vervain-dipped objects. Klaus seemed to grow angrier and more frantic with each conversation with Pearl, as well as his frustration growing with each failed attempt to find Caroline. His appearance was more bedraggled in his webcam conversations with Caroline, his facial hair unkempt and his eyes seemingly permanently tinged with a sickly highlight of yellow.

It was when Pearl was in for an extended period of time that Caroline couldn't stand. She must have been a very, very powerful witch, if her crippling headaches were anything to go by. She took Caroline almost to the brink of insanity with each unrelenting migraine, hurting her in ways that made the vervain facials feel like a day in the spa.

Once, when Caroline was being jabbed in the neck with chopsticks by Pearl's henchmen, Klaus's face loomed back into the screen, took in the scene in front of him and immediately flew into a blind rage.

"_I will rip your head off and crush it into dust between my fingers!" _He screamed.

"Klaus, Klaus, It's okay." Caroline said soothingly. _He's useless to me in a frenzy. _"It doesn't hurt as bad as I make it out to be." She lied. "I can handle it. Nothing physical can really hurt me, Klaus, I know she won't let me die."

"No, no, no, no." Pearl's grating voice interrupted their conversation. "You're tough, I give you that. Outside harm, inside, you handle it well for a baby vampire." She walked in, carrying a large cardboard box, and shooed off her minion. "Leave me alone with the girl."

Caroline bristled. "I'm hardly a baby-"

"But, baby, you have breaking point. It took me a while, but I think I found it." Pearl jiggled the box excitedly.

"_Watch it_," Klaus growled. The two girls both ignored him. Smugly, Pearl lifted the box in front of her like she was brandishing a winning trophy.

"What is it?" Caroline locked eyes challengingly with the witch. "Let me guess…something soaked in vervain? Or perhaps a stake, and let's be done with it."

"Better." Pearl tipped the box over and out tumbled something heavy, wrapped loosely in a blanket. From his vantage point behind Pearl in the laptop screen, Klaus saw it before Caroline did. His blood ran cold.

"_Look away, Caroline!" _He roared desperately, already knowing it was too late. "_Close your eyes!" _

It was Liz Forbes', Sheriff of Mystic Falls and long-suffering mother a teenage vampires, head. Her eyes were open, her mouth gaping open in a picture of fright. Caroline stared at it dumbly, not even making a sound. Pearl looked delighted.

"Mummy dearest! Janice let it slip, and all the pieces came together. She's all you had, yes? Apart from that wolf? Answer me, vampire!"

Caroline didn't take her eyes off Liz, didn't move a muscle. Pearl huffed angrily, striding forward and grabbing Caroline's chin so that their eyes met.

"Answer me, monster! This is what happens when little girls try to help out the big bad wol-" Pearl's words were cut off midsentence as Caroline felt her entire body snap, her fangs still elongating even as she ripped them into the witch's neck and pulled. Not even bothering to drink from her, despite being starved for the last week she had been here, Caroline shook Pearl's body in her teeth, like a dog, and flung her as far away into the opposite corner as she could. Caroline faced the camera, her chin smeared with blood and her teeth chattering.

"I tried so hard to keep her safe." She pleaded to Klaus, as if he could do anything that would make a difference now.

"I never talked to her again, even though she was the _only _one I wanted to talk to." Unwanted tears welled and began to drip down her face, mixing with the rivulets of blood already smeared on her cheeks. Klaus, on the other side of the screen, looked to be in a state of shock. He had yet to breathe. He needed to help Caroline. He honestly didn't know how she would recover. Even he, self-proclaimed king of torture and cruelty, had never seen a vampire put through so much in such a short period of time.

"I know, I know," He murmured finally, not knowing what else to say. "It's ok."

"It's _not _ok!" Caroline screamed back, the veins under her eyes pulsing. "What about this is ok? It's never going to be ok for me, because I'm a monster. And creatures who should be in hell don't get to celebrate normal, human life like everyone else, do they?"

"You're not a monster-"

"I need _blood_ to survive. I crave it every time I pass a beating heart. I want to rip into their vein and suck them _dry_. _How am I not a monster?"_

"Because you don't, Caroline, you don't do it!"

"As if that matters. It's all I'm good for. Killing and pain and watching everyone else _die_. That's all there is in this life, and when I tried to avoid it I ended up living a worse, dull life that I could barely stand! It was torture worse than this vervain child shit was, let me tell you, living day on and day in with people who you detested and who barely liked you back in return. What else was I meant to do though, Klaus? What other option do I have? Where's my option three?" Her tone had turned to begging, her eyes desperate.

"We'll find you one, Caroline. There's always another way-"

"I know there is. I've decided it. Everything else is too _hard _and hurts _too much_." Caroline paused, her eyes drying and her tear track leaving pale lines down her face. "Tell Rebekah she was right, when you see her. It's only you left, Klaus. And I could never leave you. Luckily, I found another way."

A glaring, terrible thought jumped from Klaus' mind. She was going to end it, join her mother and friends in wherever she believed dead people to go. They didn't go _anywhere, _he knew that, they were just dead and gone and that couldn't happen to Caroline. She was the last good thing this sad excuse of a world had to offer.

"_WAIT_," He roared, pressing his entire face against this cellphone camera in a pathetic attempt to reach out to her.

Caroline closed her eyes. A sad, slow smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. When she opened her eyes, they were empty. Void of sadness, and fear, and anger. She looked at Liz's decapitated head slowly, then at Pearl's massacred body in the corner of the room. She turned her gaze back to directly down the video camera.

"Hmm. What a mess. Are you and Rebekah any close to finding me yet? I hadn't mentioned it before, but it's a little stuffy in this room." She laughed, a miserable echo of her usual happy trill.

Klaus swallowed. What was his Caroline without her humanity?

Four days later, when Rebekah finally managed to find a successful lead and lead the pair to an abandoned CD piracy warehouse just outside of Tokyo, they found Caroline reclined and asleep, her hands still bound behind her with vervain, and three more dead bodies lying in front of her with their necks ripped out.

"Time to go, love." Klaus said. Her eyes fluttered open.

"Finally." She smiled. "Remind me not to get kidnapped again. This was a bore." Klaus came up behind her and untied her hands. She smelt like blood, vervain and dried sweat. Her hair was lank and plastered to her forehead, and her clothes dirty and ragged. She was a far cry from her usual polished, perfect look, but somehow stunning even so.

"You look half deceased." Rebekah snapped. "Did you actually drink from any of them, or just tear them apart?"

Caroline shrugged, looking amused. Rebekah bit into her wrist and held it in front of the blonde.

"Here." She sighed, sounding irritated. "Drink." Caroline just looked at it, before tilting her head backwards to look at Klaus, her eyes hungry.

"Thanks, Bekah, but no thanks."

Klaus couldn't tear his eyes from her. Did she want to drink from him? Rebekah rolled her eyes, looking at the pair.

"I can tell _this _experience is going to be fun. I'll be waiting in the car." She strode out, her heels tapping on the hard floor.

"Help me out of this chair." Caroline requested, holding out her hand. Klaus supported her as she stumbled to her feet, her breathing shallow even as her face held an arrogant smirk. Her skin was sallow with hunger. Had she really not fed from any of the people she had killed? Why not?

"Burn this place." She said stoically as they moved slowly towards the door.

"Are you sure, Caroline? I can retrieve and store Liz-"

"Burn it, Klaus." She sounded bored. Pushing away from him, she stumbled outside and into the waiting car. "Can we listen to something from this century, Rebekah?"

Klaus moved back into the building, trying not to glance in the direction of either Pearl or Liz's body lest he fly into a rage. Caroline wasn't the same as she was now. She still contained her same attitude and spunky nature, only that's where the extent of her personality seemed to end. She had turned off the best parts of herself when she had flicked the switch. Wanting to simply burn down the last place she would ever see her mum…Klaus' new mission, perhaps even more important now than finding the stake, would be returning to Caroline back to normal. Even with no emotions, Klaus decided that she wasn't happy. The Caroline he knew couldn't be, not like this.

They drove from the burning building in silence, with only slow, sad Renaissance music (Caroline having not got her way) playing in the background. Rebekah expertly wove the car through the rush-hour traffic. Caroline fiddled with her cuticles the entire drive, not saying a word. Rebekah pulled up in front of the hotel.

"I'll leave you two alone. You're _welcome_, by the way, Caroline!" She called out irritably as Caroline climbed out the car. Caroline paused, giving Rebekah a cool look.

"Perhaps next time you'll be more successful and manage to save me in time to stop my mother from being murdered." She said casually. Klaus grabbed her roughly by the arm, pulling her into the hotel lobby before Rebekah could lay into her.

"_Enough_," He growled, pushing her into the elevator and jabbing the button. Caroline looked up at him innocently.

"What's wrong, Klaus?" She asked. "Is it something I said?"

Klaus didn't bother responding. "You're not yourself, Caroline. It doesn't suit you."

"As living in constant pain and mourning did? I'm much happier now, Klaus. Don't get any stupid ideas."

"I'm sure you're dying to clean yourself up." The elevator stopped and they made their way to the hotel room. Caroline stumbled over the small step leading into the room.

"And for Christ's sake, get yourself something to drink." Klaus said irritably, flopping done onto an arm chair near the entrance. His dashing rescue mission had not gone anywhere near expectation.

Caroline raised an eyebrow. "Is that an offer?"

"Off of wha-oh." Klaus looked surprised. He extended his wrist. "Is this what you've been holding out for, love?" Caroline made her way eagerly towards him, perching on one of the chair's arms and sniffing appreciatively.

"I don't suppose you've made a habit out of drinking your own blood." She said.

"No,"

"You're missing out. It's quite a treat."

"Is it? You could have had some any time your life, love. You didn't always have to wait to be dying for it."

Caroline laughed. "Before I had decency, remember? Good girls don't go around drinking bad old men's blood." Her veins grew purple under her eyes as her fangs elongated. Closing her eyes, she sunk her teeth into Klaus' wrist and drank, sighing to herself. Klaus watched her, his head spinning with conflicted emotions. Isn't this what he had wanted? His own perky blonde monster, his dark queen at his side as he took over the world? It's what he used to dream of, what he wanted when Caroline was off on one of her high and mighty mood, too pure to ever drink from an innocent human. He had sick fantasies, where he had made Caroline draw out her darkest desires and give in to them, turn Ripper and live gloriously by her side. Yet, even in those dreams where she had been ruthless and merciless, she hadn't been as _cold _as she was now.

He had thought that was what he wanted, but he saw now how wrong he was. Yes, this was a divine picture, Caroline in her true vampire form and enjoying feeding her blood lust for once…but the aura of light that usually radiated from all around her, even when she was in the worst of moods, was missing. It was like she had locked away the biggest and more vital part of what made Caroline _Caroline_. He realised that he would rather have her back to the way she was normally, perfect and with more humanity than he had ever seen in a vampire, and have her hate him for the monster than he was, than for her to join him in the ranks of the darkness. That wasn't where he belonged. Regrettingly, he pulled his wrist away. Caroline looked up, the veins staining her cheeks.

"Hey!" She protested. "I wasn't finished."

"Yes, you are."

Huffing loudly, she flounced herself off the chair and made her way into the bathroom, slamming the door shut.

* * *

Caroline emerged three hours later, polished and primped within an inch of her life. She was back in the minuscule dress she had worn to the Tokyo nightclub, her face and hair perfectly done up.

"What are you dressed up for, sweetheart?" Klaus asked.

Caroline frowned. "Have you not moved from that same position all this time?"

"I was guarding the door, love. We don't yet know if Pearl Yung has everlasting contacts in this city that will try finish the job she started, so it may be better to be safe rather than sorry."

Caroline waved the threat off. "Whatever. I'm going out. Rebekah's coming with me, you can join us if you want."

Klaus frowned, moving so that he was standing directly in front of her.

"That's a foolish idea, to get drunk and vulnerable, when you have no idea of any dangers out there. Even with no emotions, you must still have an instinct to survive."

Caroline shrugged. "Lighten up, Klaus. I've spent the last three decades in a constant of misery – because of _you_, actually." Klaus flinched. Caroline laughed. "Don't you want to have any fun together?" She raised an eyebrow, the innuendo clear. Klaus turned away from her.

"One night, and then we're trying things my way."

A loud, insistent knocking came from the other side of the door.

"I'm here against my will to get the ungrateful bitch drunk!" Rebekah called through the peephole. Grinning, Caroline bounded to the door and flung it open.

"You look better than me." She frowned, taking in Rebekah's stylish and expensive looking halter dress. "Swap?"

Rebekah snorted. "Sweetie, it's not as if you need male attention. You could go out in a paper bag and Nik would still want to whisk you home with him."

"I know, he's obsessed." Caroline laughed teasingly. From the other side of the room, Klaus gritted his teeth and forced himself not to say anything biting in response. Unlike their usual banter or arguments that he nearly always enjoyed, Caroline wasn't herself. She was more cruel and cutting. He didn't want to precipitate and say things that would hurt her when she came back to herself.

"Unless you two would like to spend the entire night in here, I'd recommend we move along."

* * *

The club Rebekah had taken to them was a small Western notch in the city of Tokyo. American club music blasted loudly and, in an attempt to create 'a house party vibe' the drinks (even the merlot Klaus had been downing all night) were all served in tacky plastic red cups.

"I'm glad you appreciate the local culture." He commented drily to Rebekah. She let out an obnoxious whoop and shimmied her way into the masses of dancing people. Caroline was scanning the entire club, looking bored. Klaus extended a hand.

"Would you like a dance?"

"Balls are more fun than this lot, isn't it? Better dancing." Caroline mused, ignoring his outstretched hand.

"It was your idea to come here tonight." Klaus reminded her.

"Oh, I know. Should we dance?" Smiling brightly as if it was her idea, she grabbed his hand and led them onto the floor. Adopting an odd mixture of their usual slow ballroom and the fast gyrating of the crowd amongst them, Klaus wrapped his hands around Caroline's waist and they shuffled back and forth quickly in time to the beating music. Caroline glanced down at his hands curiously.

"Interesting." She commented.

"What is, love?" Klaus bought his head closer to hers so that they could hear each other over the loud music that made it slightly difficult, even for vampires like them.

Her voice was clinical. "Even when I don't feel any emotion at all, your touch still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up."

Klaus felt his a shiver go through his own body when she said that. He knew himself that anytime their skin brushed, she touched him, even _looked _his way, a thousand undercurrents charged through his body, invigorating him in ways he hadn't felt in centuries. He didn't realise she felt it too, at least not to a similar extent.

Caroline's arms reached up to interlock behind Klaus' neck. They moved up to tangle through his hair, pulling his head lower down so that they were practically nose-to-nose. Klaus closed his eyes and let himself enjoy it for a brief moment, the physical connection he had wanted for so long. The heat of her skin, the pressure of her body pressed to his, the feeling of her hands twisting through his hair, the sound of her breathing growing shallower and shallower. He opened his eyes to look into hers. Despite the expression of lust on her face, her eyes were dead. Empty. Blank and void of all the spinning emotions and thoughts and ideas that were usually there. He had drawn her eyes a million times, and knew they had more depth than could ever be explored. And here they were, flat and one-dimensional. He reached up, gently removing her hands and placing them back at her sides.

"Do you not want me?" Caroline asked, her voice mocking. "I know you do. I want _you._" Her hands moved up again, this time cradling his face. Klaus exhaled. It would be so easy to succumb to her, she was all he wanted in this world. And he had wanted her _so _much for _so _long. But he didn't want their first physical connection like this, not when she wasn't herself.

"Come _on_, Klaus." Caroline urged. "As if sad, perfect little me was ever going to give in to her secret desire for you. I would be scorning everyone I even cared about. You might never get this chance again. Have me like you want me." Her lips were at his ear, the feeling of her breath making his blood run hot and fast in his veins.

"I want you, Klaus. I always have, _like this_," Her hands came down to the top button of his shirt, slowly unbuttoning it. "Of course I did. The most powerful vampire in the world? Aren't older men meant to be better? Now that I'm not myself, I can finally turn my dreams into reality." She started on the second button. Klaus pushed her away.

"I don't want _you_ like this." He told her steadily, fighting down every urge in his body that told him to give up and take up her long-awaited offer. Caroline's face turned cruel.

"Why not? Because I'm not the _good little Caroline _you fell in love with?" She laughed meanly. Klaus felt himself inwardly flinch.

"I should have known you were a waste of time. Of course, you'll murder someone who sneezes in your proximity but when it comes down to _women _and _me _you're all kinds of honourable." She rebuttoned his shirt, running her finger teasingly along his collarbone. "Poor little Klaus, the hopeless romantic with an unfortunate temper. You never had a chance with me with my humanity on, and now, you've just lost the chance with me now." She turned on her heel and marched away, immediately shimmying up to a random guy and beginning to dance on him, locking eyes with Klaus as she did so to challenge him.

"Stupid trollop." Rebekah said, appearing suddenly beside him. "For a moment I thought she might be a bit of fun, but you were right Klaus, she's horrid. Much more bearable as a do-gooder control freak."

"Tell me that I shouldn't go rip that person's head off." Klaus said through gritted teeth, watching Caroline gyrate on the lanky unsuspecting man.

"Who? Caroline?" Rebekah barked out a laugh. "Oh, relax, brother. Luckily for you, your object of ultimate desire and affection isn't actually as pretty as you think she is." Swiftly, Rebekah made her way to the dancing pair and cut in, hip-bumping Caroline out of the way. The dopey boy took to this new partner easily enough, not even glancing back in Caroline's direction. Looking furious, Caroline disappeared into the crowd. Klaus moved to follow her, winking at Rebekah as he did so.

"Wait for me, love." He called, making his way outside where Caroline was already stomping up the street.

"Why on earth would I do that?" She yelled back, moving faster. Klaus easily caught up, grabbing hold of Caroline's hand and making her slow to a regular walking pace. Caroline glanced down at their clasped hands.

"Have you changed your mind? Want to go back to the hotel with me?" She asked seductively.

"I'd go anywhere in the world with you, love. I'd rather have the true Caroline back, though."

"Why? What's she got to offer than I don't? Tears? Compassion for the human race? Crippling grief?"

"Life in her eyes." Klaus offered. Caroline scowled, ripping her hand from his.

"I'm not going back to being in pain every second of the day. This is it, Klaus, this is _me. _Love me or leave me."

Klaus caught her face in his hands. "Hmm." He hummed. "What a choice. Unfortunately, love, I can't choose either." He cracked her neck in his hands, catching her body as it began to drop to the floor.


	8. A Switch

**A/N: Hi all! So this one is a bit (Ok, alot) later than originally planned. I'll explain in a A/N at the bottom, just so I don't spoil anything.**

** Anyway, the story has definitely taken a different turn from when I originally started, but this is basically where the characters have taken me and I've just been following along for the ride. R&amp;R and tell me what you think!**

* * *

When Caroline came to, she was strapped into a first class airplane seat, a thousand miles up in the air. Apart from Klaus sitting next to her, an irritating image of content patience, the cabin was empty. Klaus turned his head and smiled at Caroline as he realised she was awake.

"What the _hell_?" She hissed. He lay a finger over her lips.

"Quiet, love. I thought you might make a fuss, so I compelled us first class. We wouldn't want to upset economy though. From the look of the seats back there, they're already going through enough."

Caroline narrowed her eyes, clearly not amused. "Where exactly are we going, Klaus?"

"Oh, just to find your soul." Klaus winked, looking irritatingly bemused. "You're much more becoming with it, you know."

"And how are you meant to find mine if you haven't located your own in over a thousand years?"

"I know exactly where mine is, sweetheart. It's right here," Klaus tapped his chest. "It's just a bit tarnished from those thousand years of evil and murder and whatnot. Yours makes mine brighter, however, so finding yours again is at the top of my own selfish agenda."

Caroline snorted. "Of course it is. It's all about you. I'm _happy _now. I don't want to go back to feeling moody and guilty and miserable 24/7, ok? If you liked me at all, you would just leave me be."

Klaus grabbed her hands, looking directly into her eyes. "You're feeling better _now_. It won't last. I've never met a single vampire able to sustain their no-humanity switch for the rest of their lives. Eventually, every single one of them runs into a trigger, and when that happens everything bad you've done will come crushing down on you. You think you felt bad before? Imagine if I left you now, in ten years, when you've killed your way through the continent of Asia. Do you not remember Stefan? How do you think this is going to end?"

Caroline snatched her hands away. "Oh, boo hoo. Look, if my life after this gets any worse than my life before this was, dealing with it won't be a problem. It won't even be an option."

"What does that mean?" Klaus voice was dangerously low, all humour suddenly gone. Caroline waved her hand flippantly.

"Sorry, Klausykins. I'm pretty positive Liz was the nail on the coffin head. What do I have left to live for anyway?"

Klaus grabbed her chin, turning her head so that she was forced to look at him. "I would never allow that to happen."

Caroline's lip curled into a snarl. "It's not your choice." She snapped. "You almost did it _for_ me, once."

"Don't think for once second that I was ever going to be able to go through with _that_." Klaus sounded disgusted.

"Well, you sure fooled me at the time. You did _worse _after anyway."

"It was only meant to be Damon!" Klaus exploded. Caroline's eyebrows shot up.

"I was so mad at losing Kol and then _Damon_, of all people, outsmarting me_? _I just wanted _him _to die but then of course, everyone came at me and once I started it seemed like I couldn't stop but I _can't _take it back. Ok? Hate me, feel indifferent towards me but know that when I had you all there, I was not intending to kill a single one of you. I wanted to torture you and get you all on your knees begging for my forgiveness, and then I would have let you go." Klaus' face was stony, the words leaving his mouth coldly as if he was reading something off of paper.

Caroline snorted. "Do you expect me to believe that?"

"You can believe what you want. I'll admit I regret it. I won't admit that I feel to terribly guilty about Damon still, and I never really did care for the doppelganger or witch, but I did not intend their deaths on that day."

"If you don't care, then why do you regret it?"

"You." Klaus said simply. "In less than a minute, I lost everything I had been trying for months to gain with you."

A flicker of hesitation passed over Caroline's face before it turned hard. "And now I've lost everything I've ever had _but _you. Luckily, I don't care about anything anymore." Caroline wriggled around to stare out the window. "Funny that. Where are we going, anyway?"

"You'll see."

An air hostess, her eyes glazed over with the trademark blank stare of compulsion, pushed a cart up the aisle, stopping to pour them two flutes of champagne. Klaus offered one to Caroline, who scoffed and didn't look away from the window.

"It's not going to work." She snapped.

"What's not, sweetheart?"

"Whatever you're planning. Who are you planning on surprising me with in terms of trying to trigger my emotions? Are you going to whip out an old yearbook?"

"Perhaps I'll just torture you until you find your sense of fear."

"Oh, boring. That's been overdone. Next idea?"

"I can't tell you, love. Rebekah doesn't think it's a good idea."

"Well, hopefully it should at least be interesting then. Rebekah's as dull as a doornail."

Klaus smirked. "You usually find her too quick-tempered and impulsive."

"Klausy," Caroline said condescendingly, finally turning away from the window to look at him teasingly. "You're comparing me to the girl I left behind."

Klaus' smile straightened into a thin line. "You didn't leave her behind, love. You're hiding her away. I'll find her, though." His tone was confident. Caroline, for a second, felt worried. She didn't want to lose this emotionless freedom she had just found. She knew what Klaus was like once he wanted something. If there was anyone on this world who could make her flip her switch back, it would be him.

Her eyes narrowed mischievously. "I have a better proposition for you. One that will make you forget all about this silly plan of yours. I have a much better place to go to then wherever you're planning on visiting. And I'm _sure_ we can find ways to entertain each other on the way." Caroline smiled lazily, her hand brushing down the length of Klaus' chest. He pushed her hand away, struggling to ignore the trail of heat that she had just scorched through his shirt. God, he wanted her, but not like this.

"And what could this proposition be, love?"

"Pearl likes to speak, she liked to taunt. So," Caroline's eyes gleamed "I know where the next part of the scavenger hunt is."

Klaus easy smile stiffened on his face. His eyes bored into Caroline's, the empty caverns of blue that revealed nothing to him at all. Was she telling the truth, or was this simply a ploy so that he was be thrown off his current task? Caroline was grinning, her hands creeping up the airplane arm rest to slip under his long sleeves and send gooseflesh down the length of his entire forearm. He caught her wrists in one hand and pulled them away, his eyes flickering shut as he struggled to have resistance against the only woman he had ever lost sleep over. He wasn't known for his amazing self-control, after all, and right now he could feel it being pushed to the very limit. She was still just as beautiful, just as magnetic, just as ethereal, here, as she was, sitting beside him on the plane in her inappropriate clubbing clothing and slightly smudged make up. Her smile was still as lovely, her hair still catching every orifice of light the dim plane cabin had to offer. Her magnificent body still lithe and inviting, calling to every part of Klaus' own. Her banter and tongue was just as sharp, if not slightly more below the belt and cutting. He wanted to destroy the only weapon that threatened his immortatily, yes, he did and he would do nearly anything to get it. Maybe he could learn to love the new Caroline just as much as he had adored the old one. She was still the same person, wasn't she? She seemed…happy. If not that exactly, then content at least. She wasn't sad anymore, she would never again suffer from that nightmare. The memory of her, writhing in internal pain and him not being able to do anthing more than whisper stupid sweet nothings made him swallow in pain. She didn't deserve that suffering. Perhaps she deserved to keep her new self.

But he couldn't help to compare her to the Caroline on the plane trip to Tokyo. Sitting folded into the chair, studiously ignoring him and gaping at the sights outside her window, her eyes gleaming and her mouth stretched into a huge grin even as she turned her gleeful face away from him. Her plaintive complaints for boredom, her loud laughter at the childish movie she had been watching. The way her eyes had flashed angrily when he had revealed the letter from her fiancé, her constant fidgeting, her vulnerable and open expression when she had been asleep. The way she had inhaled in his scent and clung to his neck before forcing herself away, as if she loved the taste of his blood, and the way it had made him yearn to slice himself completely open and drain himself at her feet. Her surprising emotional outburst, and the look in her eyes after, a swirling maze of sadness, regret, anger, frustration, grief and pride, spilling out into liquid diamonds that he had itched to kiss off her cheeks.

He looked at the Caroline in front of him. She smiled brilliantly, just as always, but her eyes were dead. He knew then that his choice had already been made for him, by powers greater than him. Caroline could not be truly satisfied the way she was now if her eyes were as empty as they were now. _The eyes are the window to the soul_, and for Caroline the saying had never been more true. It was her weak and dying stare, the night of her birthday, that has first pulled him in. When he had visited, his intention purely on getting the Sheriff on his good side. She had been lying, weak and helpless, her body and face a picture of the damsel in distress. Then she had locked eyes with him, and he had been astonished at how fiery they still were. How they flashed and challenged him with her glare, even as she lay perishing completely at his own will. He had never been able to get enough of them since. He could get lost in them for days, and never have any desire to leave them. Klaus owed it to her, and to him, and to the rest of the world, to restore Caroline's gaze to its former depthless beauty.

"Perhaps we can do that after." He said lightly, his voice tight with restraint. Caroline growled.

"Pathetic." She hissed, twisting back into her seat and away from him again. "Oh how the great have fallen. Klaus Mikaelson, immortal hybrid and feared around the world, putting his entire life on the line in a useless attempt to save the soul of a girl who doesn't want to be saved and who doesn't want _him_."

"This conversation is over, sweetheart. If I remember, you were a fan of the in-flight entertainment."

* * *

"I still have no idea why you think this is going to work? What's going to spring my humanity here?" Caroline asked as she made her way reluctantly down a hospital hall, being firmly tugged along by Klaus.

"Is seeing all the sick, unfortunate people going to trigger sympathy? Am I going to throw myself on my knees and realise how _lucky_ I am?" She asked sarcastically. Klaus didn't bother replying, having not said a word since their conversation on the plane.

"You know, I'm not exactly dressed appropriately for such a family friendly place." Caroline reminded him, dragging her heeled feet in resistance. "I feel like we're making quite a scene." Klaus pulled her forward more harshly, rounding the corner and continuing down another glossy, white bustling hall. He led them out the end door, into a busy ambulance lot. Moving behind her, Klaus changed his grip to around her waist, his other hand reaching up and positing her chin so that she was looking towards the ambulance fourth from the left.

"What are you doing?" Caroline snapped, gnashing her teeth. "This is completely ridiculous and there's _seriously _no point in-" Caroline's voice stilled abruptly, her mouth falling open into a gape.

"_Stefan_." She murmured. Across from them, Stefan Salvatore climbed out of the ambulance, wheeling out a stretcher with a heavy-looking equipment bag slung over his shoulder. His brow was hooded and beaded with set, and his mouth set in a serious line, his expression grim. Caroline felt herself collapse back towards Klaus chest and then, suddenly, she easily broke out of his grasp and was running towards him.

"Stefan, it's not possible." She said, stopping less than a metre away from him, her arms stretched out towards him. Stefan jumped back in surprise, his eyes raking over the pretty blonde girl standing in front of him, dressed in tight night clothing and insanely high heels, her arms reached out as if she wanted to hug him. Who the hell was she?

"Sorry, uh, I'm having trouble placing you at the moment. Did you just call me Stefan?"

"Stefan, it's me, Caroline." She urged, her mouth beginning to droop at the corners.

"My name's Tom. I'm sorry, uh…. Caroline? I don't think we've met before. I think you may have me confused with someone else." Was this girl on drugs? She certainly looked like she had come from an all-night bender. Her expression looked forlorn, though, slightly insane. He took a minimal step backwards, slightly unnerved.

"I don't understand this, Stefan. You're dead."

Tom took another step backwards. Oh my God, she was off her face. He wondered if he should call for help, see if she need treating or being looked over by a doctor. Had she escaped from the ER or something?

"Would you like me to get you a nurse?" He asked softly, keeping his distance. "What room were you in, miss?"

"Please," Caroline stretched out her hand, her tone pleading. "Let's just go for a drink, and you can explain everything to me and we can figure out exactly what happened and then we can-"

"You're gorgeous." Tom interrupted quickly, pitying the desperate tone in her voice. He was an awkward boy, aware but uncomfortable of his brooding good looks that he knew made him look much more mysterious than he really was. If this girl was seriously just hitting on him, he really didn't know how to handle it. "But I'm afraid you would be the type of girl my mother warned me to stay away from."

Caroline faltered for a moment, looking down at herself. "No one's ever said that to me before. I'm Miss Mystic Falls, I…I volunteer and run _groups _and things." She murmured, before turning her gaze back to Tom. "Please, Stefan, you can't have forgotten me. I think about you every single day, at least I did before I-" She trailed off, unsure how to confess her weakness to the very vampire that had taught her strength.

Tom swallowed hard. She seemed so sad, but _off _somehow, as if not everything was connected in her head. He took another step backwards, and collided back into a wall of hard flash. Immovable hands gripped his neck. Tom yelped in pain. Caroline went to flash towards him, but was halted in her tracks by Tom's terrified look.

"Enough, Caroline." Klaus said gruffly. He couldn't stand watching this trainwreck any longer. "This is Tom. Stefan's doppelganger."

Caroline stared back at him wordlessly, not understanding.

"Behold, the reason between Stefan and Elena's consuming and epic romance. Nothing like two supernatural freaks with a magical, prophet bond, designed to be repeated over and over. Unfortunately, vampires got in the way. Katherine and Stefan were meant to be doppel-matches, just as Elena and Tom were. Elena and Stefan aside, it means that Tom here will never truly find the _true _love of his small mortal life. Which is why-" Klaus gripped the poor boys neck a bit tighter. "I might as well just kill him."

"Don't you dare." Caroline growled.

"Why?" Klaus bit back viciously. "Do you care?"

Caroline snarled, her entire lip curling up in utter disgust.

"No." She spat. Klaus slowly tilted the boy's head to one side, hearing a small popping sound.

"Stop him! Please stop him, Caroline!" Tom screeched in pain, quickly twigging that the psychotic girl in front of him could save him.

"I _can't_!" She hissed at Tom. "You don't understand how much it will hurt me to save you." Klaus tilted the boys head even further to the side. Caroline heard a small bone crack, watched the boy's face contort in agony.

"Please, Caroline!" Tom said, his voice coming out gurgled from the odd position his head was tilted at.

"Stop _asking _me!" Caroline yelled.

"You've got one second to decide, Caroline." Klaus said harshly, his voice leaving no room for doubt.

"_PLEA-"_

"Let me think!" Caroline screamed. She looked at the two, Klaus slowly killing the man identical to Stefan, who wasn't Stefan but talked with Stefan's voice and had Stefan's same kind but guarded stare and Caroline felt the floodgates open and everything she had ever felt wash over her and in front of her eyes, blinding her.

"_Please_," She begged, hearing her voice crack. "Don't hurt him, he looks so much like him. _Please _don't do this Klaus, please," She dropped to her knees, her hands flying up to cradle her head. Klaus whirled the boy in front of him to face him.

"Forget this. Forget her. Go back to work and forget this moment." He compelled, shoving him aside immediately and rushing to the aide of Caroline. "Caroline," He murmured, feeling a mixture of triumphant and guilt at the sight of her on the ground, racking with sobs. He placed a finger under her chin, gently lifting it so their eyes met. Her face was stained with tears but they were back. He sighed slightly with relief. Flashing, weeping, twirling blue chasms, revealing that her soul was once again there in full force and making Klaus felt like he had one.

"She was all I had left." Caroline sobbed. "It took so much to walk away to keep her safe, and it was for _nothing_."

"I know," Klaus murmured.

"You _don't _know, Klaus! You've never been handed the head of your mother, and you have _no idea_ how much it rips you apart from the inside out." Caroline shook with the intensity of her tears, her chin trembling in his hands.

"You're right." Klaus took back. "Apologies, my love. I will never know how you feel, but all I want is to take it away,"

"You were the one who brought it _back_." She sniffed. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

Klaus' eyes flashed. "I can barely stomach the sight of it, but yes, I want this over you the way you were."

"Why? Was I so awful? I didn't kill anyone bar Pearl – did I? You didn't compel me to forget anything I did?" Caroline's voice became frantic suddenly.

"No, love, you were a model citizen even embracing your monster. You put us all to shame." He chuckled, but there was no humour in it. "You were empty."

"I feel empty every day, Klaus."

"You weren't Caroline."

Caroline barked out a bitter laugh. "And what's so great about her? Dead mom, dead dad, dead friends. Who wants to be Caroline?" Her words dissolved into more vicious sobs, and Klaus knelt fully before her so that they were level, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her damp face into his neck. She cried harder, clinging to him like a child.

"You're it. You're the only one left in my life." She sobbed. "I don't know anyone in this world but you."

"I'll never leave." Klaus murmured, marvelling at the angel he was allowed to hold in his arms. A broken, scarred, wingless angel, but one that would still bring heaven to earth and happiness to that of one loveless devil.

* * *

**A/N: So, basically, at least for me, writing no-humanity Caroline sucked! I wrote, edited, re-wrote this chapter so many times but I still don't feel like I quite nailed it. That's partially the reason I made the no-humanity sub-plot quite short, I hope nobody will see it as a cop-out of filler, in all truths I never meant it to go on for long but felt it was an important milestone for Caroline to reach, just as she did in the show. (Although obviously I am not following canon in anyway).**

** We will be meeting with my second favourite original next chapter, so stay tuned! R&amp;R and tell me your honest opinion about everything! Reviews make me better!**


	9. A Secret

**A/N: I'm back! (Because I'm trash and that phone call in 7x14 made me literally squeal and get all sort of inspo). Hope you all like this chapter, and as well, I've been re-reading and have seen some things I want to fix up so I will be doing that, slowly. (Some is just general spelling/grammar and then there are also little bits I just want to relook at and edit. Nothing I fix will change to overall story or chapter, however). So keep an eye out for that! Because it's been a while, please let me know all your opinions and thoughts on this bit! I have the ultimate end to the story all planned but I'm still considering how the journey there is going to be, and your reviews have definitely swayed the direction and tone of this story throughout this fic.**

**Anyway, enough for me, hope you enjoy!**

* * *

"Welcome to my humble abode," Klaus said, his tone light-hearted, attempting to twirl Caroline over the threshold. She stumbled clumsily over the small step but plastered a smile on her face, trying to play along. "Apologies again, love, that my closest property was such a drive. Still, I thought it more comfortable than a hotel."

Caroline looked around the sterile looking living room. It was larger than any other house she had seen, even the boarding house or Tyler's mansion. It was gleaming with money and superiority, with high-ceilings, marble-look walls and polished stone floors. The furniture was minimalistic but sleek, very tasteful, and there were various statues and statuettes rivalling a museum's collection. Despite herself, Caroline snorted in amusement. Klaus' eyes shot to hers, confused.

Where was the giant sprawling fireplaces? The bizarre but beautiful collection of paintings? And, most of all, a certain lack of what Caroline knew was Klaus' favourite colour, blood red, something usually plastered across every wall, floor and any other visible surface.

"You don't have to lie to me, Klaus." Caroline admonished, rolling her eyes. "Who did you compel for the house? Don't try tell me this is yours."

"Caroline, it is-" Klaus started, frowning, but he was interrupted by a chuckling. Elijah, looking every bit the picture perfect elite vampire in a suit and tie, as he walked in from the hallway behind Klaus.

"Both an intelligent and impressive deduction. Klaus, seems you have been once again outsmarted by the young vampire." He extended his hand to Caroline. "Miss Forbes, I don't believe we've ever truly had the pleasure of properly acquainting ourselves." Caroline shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you. Um, nice place."

"You dislike it greatly." Elijah noted, staring at her, his tone not accusing but factual. Caroline shrugged, looking embarrassed. She glanced sidelong at Klaus for help, but he was grinning, obviously finding the whole thing highly amusing.

"It's a bit clinical for me, but then again I grew up with polka-dot curtains in my bedroom." She offered up a strained smile, the largest one she could try and muster. Elijah smiled back in response.

"I agree, Caroline. This is a property I use purely for work purposes, so I quite like the order and peace. For the houses I stay in for extended periods of time I often call on my sister's advice to making it more comfortable."

Unable to stop herself, Caroline rolled her eyes at the unintentionally pompous speech. "Oh, yes, I decorate my multiple houses by how long I'll be staying in them as well." She said sarcastically then, realising she had just insulted an Original whom she did not yet know of their temper, clapped a hand over her mouth. Elijah seemed fortunately amused, however, as did Klaus who openly laughed.

"I see why Rebekah used to have so many quarrels with you. _I _had to deal with the backlash of those, I hope you know."

"No apologies for defending my cheer squad from amateurs." Caroline bit back, but she was beginning to laugh as well. She suddenly caught herself. What was she doing, laughing and joking around? Playing around with the murderer and his brother that had killed her friends? Her mouth set into a thin line. Klaus, immediately noticing her shift in demeanour, turned to her and frowned.

"Would you like me to show you to your room?" He asked, laying a hand on her arm. Without thinking, Caroline jerked away. She noticed Eljah's eyes widen at the rejection, felt Klaus stiffen beside her. It probably wasn't the smartest idea in the world to do things that embarrassed the Original in front of his family. Just because he allowed himself to drop the Alpha Male one-man show around her didn't mean he did for anyone else.

"I'm fine." She muttered. "Hungry."

"I have servants living next door." Elijah offered. "I'll get them to send someone over."

Caroline shook her head. "I don't drink from humans."

Elijah's eyebrows shot up. "An animal diet?" He said incredulously. "Really?"

"Well, blood bags, usually."

"I can drip one of the girls into a glass for you." Elijah offered diplomatically. "It's no trouble."

"No, I'm alright." Caroline crinkled her brow. So this was the oldest Original's twisted idea of chivalry. It was nice, she guessed, but not exactly fitting in with her idea of Richard Gere in _Pretty Women. _ "I might just go to my room. Klaus?" Klaus nodded and slipped his arm into hers again, only this time his grip was tight and Caroline knew it wasn't a good idea to try and brush him off again,. He was saving face in front of his brother, she realised. Wearily, she forced up another small smile for Elijah.

"Thank you for letting me stay here." She said.

"My pleasure, Caroline. You and Niklaus are welcome to stay as long as you desire. I have a couple of tasks to wrap up here, and then I will be moving on." His gaze turned pitying for a second and Caroline realised that either Rebekah or Klaus himself had filled him in on her sad excuse for a life. Her face burned. She didn't want Elijah, who had never even met her before, to feel pity for her. "Please make yourself as comfortable as you can here." Caroline's smile faltered, and she let herself be led up the stairs by Klaus. He took her to the end of the hall, where the largest room Caroline had ever seen was. It was starkly decorated along the lines of the rest of the room, nothing but a large white covered bed and a tidy metal desk in the corner. It was grey, sleek and cold feeling. Caroline felt a shiver crawl up her spine as she took in the empty cavern of a room.

"You don't like it." Klaus said, sounding disappointed.

"It's fine." Caroline replied automatically. Klaus frowned.

"Don't condescend me by lying to me, Caroline. I can tell when you are." Klaus went to one of the two doors on the wall opposite to Caroline's bed.

"This is a shared ensuite bathroom, and a shared double wardrobe."

"Shared with who?" Caroline asked, already knowing the answer. Klaus opened the wardrobe door and beckoned Caroline to follow him. The wardrobe was enormous, easily the size of Caroline's old bedroom in the apartment she had shared with Eric. It wasn't even a quarter filled, the only clothing a couple pair of shirts, trousers and a leather jacket. The door on the other side was open and they walked through it, right into Klaus' bedroom, it was exactly as Caroline thought it would be. Deep red and richly furnished, a huge black fur throw strewn over the silk-sheeted massive bed and a swirling landscape of black crashing waves on the wall. Caroline felt a strange mixture of uneasiness and comfort fill her as she took in the familiar surroundings. It was Klaus, through and through, and the familiar sense this gave her unsettled her. She wanted to hide under the bed and fling herself onto the mountain of pillows, equally. She was aware of Klaus staring at her beside her, studying her reactions.

"Do you want to swap?" He asked.

"No." Caroline said. "This is your room." She walked over to the painting. It was a seaside during a storm, the black and greys slashed over in a violent frenzy. It was Klaus' of course, she could recognise that easily. It held the familiarity of his others and the same taste of dark emotions. Despite herself, Caroline had visited a few art galleries and noticed some of his work there. It only ever took her a couple of minutes to pick out and recognise, and she usually just left straight after sighting it, not bothering to go up and have a closer look.

Klaus followed her, stopping so close behind her that she could feel his warm breath on her skin. Unintentionally, she shivered, feeling every hair on the back of her neck stand up. This was moving quickly into dangerous territory. She remembered, horribly, what she had admitted to him during her short term without humanity, how much she lusted over him and wanted him and what the touch and even the _thought _of him did to her. She shivered again, this time at the consequences those confessions were surely going to bring her. One of Klaus' hands moved to gently rest against her hip, the casual contact feeling as if it scorched a hole through Caroline's skirt, and skin, and bone. Her eyes fluttered shut. Maybe she should be pushing him away, but she didn't think she had it in her. With Klaus, he made it so that she could barely think of anything else. And she didn't want to. Everything in her life was a mess, was something rivalling a Greek tragedy, and yeah, in Tokyo, it had felt nice to be able to block out the constant thundering of grief and sadness for a couple of hours. To concentrate instead on triyng to work out the weird influx of emotions Klaus seemed to cause by looking at her, or speaking to her in that accent, or touching her as if she was made of feather and molten metal all at the same. She could hear his blood pumping through his veins, smell his delicious, intoxicating blood, could almost _taste _the – Caroline arched her body away from Klaus, trying to distance herself from him and her rising appetite.

"You're hungry." He said. Caroline murmured in vague agreement, struggling to concentrate on something other than how _amazing _he was smelling.

"I'll be ok until tomorrow." She said lamely.

"You can feed now." Klaus suggested, his nose brushing a line of fire across her collarbone. Caroline shivered again, both from the touch and from the meaning behind his words.

"No, I can't." She said again.

"You don't need to suppress yourself. I could always just, make you." Klaus gently scraped his human teeth against her neck, the unspoken threat clear. Caroline turned so that she was facing him, their faces inches apart. His breath washed over her, the smell of mint and old leather.

"Stop. I can't be doing this with you after….every that just happened." She murmured. An image flashed in her mind, _Liz Liz Liz_, and Caroline swallowed down a scream as she struggled to make her mind blank again, lock the memory away. She wasn't going to allow herself to break down again. That wasn't who she was. In 24 hours she had confessed feelings to Klaus, tried to jump his bones and now she was on the verge of having her second sobbing breakdown. When Caroline was a human, self-conscious and used to feeling second best, her immaculate control was what made her able to rise and stay at the top of the high school food chain. Even though she was labelled a 'control freak' she still had respect for being the cheer captain, the committee leader, the 'smart' blonde. Practically perfect, in every way, and if anything ever faltered Caroline was right there ready to fix it up and _take control. _When she was turned into a vampire it was this same control that allowed her to keep her life, when Damon had wanted to kill her because he thought she would be loose and dangerous with feeding. It was the control she needed to return to high school so quickly, to blend in with the students every day and not rip their heads off and feed from them. To live with her mum and feel nothing but daughterly devotion despite the bubbling hunger that lived within her every minute. It was the control she had allowed used to survive over the last thirty years, living 'free and wild' but with a contestant mental check on herself, able to reel herself in and move around every time she felt herself start to develop a genuine connection with someone. It was this same control that Klaus had somehow managed to tumble down within a week of being with him again.

"Whatever happened, Caroline,that is no reason to torture yourself to the extent of starvation." Klaus brushed a hand down Caroline's jaw, cupping it gently. "Give yourself 12 hours, love. Feed, rest, allow your mind to be distracted, and deal with everything in the morning." It sounded like the most glorious vacation she could ever take. It sounded amazing. She couldn't though, could she? It would be disrespectful to allow herself to push it out of her mind, even for such a short period of time. Then again, what good was punishing herself doing? It wasn't like that was helping anything. Klaus wouldn't give up. One day. _Half _a day, really. 12 hours to put everything else but right now in the back of her mind. Wasn't that what she was chasing all these years anyway? The drunken black outs and random lovers and endless nights, all trying to get herself in stupor that meant she no longer had to remember. Nothing had worked. Not until now.

Silently, Caroline shook her head. Klaus dropped his hand, inhaling sharply through gritted teeth.

"No deal. I won't ever forget their eye colours." She had heard that that was the first thing to fade from memory, the exact shade and twinkle in someone's eye. Even now, so many years on, Caroline could close her eyes and feel like she was looking straight into Bonnie's, or Stefan's eyes.

"I won't distract, but," Caroline paused, toying with her next words. She wasn't sure she wanted to say them, but also, she didn't really see the point in not either, seeing as she had said them already and so much more in her humanity-less stint. "I won't deprave myself."

Her neck arched upwards, feeling her fangs drop as she reached hesitantly for Klaus. She heard his sharp intake of breath at her vampire face, the veins tracking along her cheek.

"Beautiful." She heard him murmur, as she pulled herself closer and sank her fangs deep into a vein on his neck. It was hot and intoxicating and immediate, the delicious liquid filling her with a type of fulfilment and happiness she couldn't get form somewhere. _This_ was the heroin that people tasted, only for her the high seemed to only get better and better each time she experienced it. Nothing compared to the taste of it, to the feeling that it gave her. Klaus had one hand twisted in her hair, his lips gently brushing the top of her forehead as her murmured sweet nothings. Caroline knew, from what Stefan had told her, how intimate the act of blood-sharing between vampires was meant to be. And she had already done it so many times with Klaus. She needed to get blood bags. Oh, but she didn't want to let go.

Reluctantly, Caroline withdrew her fangs and pushed Klaus away from herself. He growled, his eyes flashing, clearly not pleased.

Caroline crossed her arms. "I was hungry, Klaus. I wasn't doing anything but satiating my needs."

"You're not doing that at all. You're declining yourself of your every deepest, most potent needs." Klaus disagreed. "It wasn't as if I didn't know before, Caroline, I can hear the patterns of your heartbeat. Feel the flush of warmth every time I make contact with you." Carefully, Klaus moved his hand up to stroke a strand of hair out of Caroline's face, ignoring Caroline's half-hearted bat at it. "

But it's even more pointless now you've said it to me face-to-face, love." Klaus continued. "You want me just as I want you."

Caroline flushed red. "I wasn't myself."

Klaus' body tightened as he sucked in an exasperated breath. "No, you weren't. You were cold and a weird little shell of yourself, but you spoke nothing but the truth. I'm thousands of years old, Caroline, and I'm growing tired of these teenage games." Abruptly, Klaus stalked past her and out the room, slamming the door shut. Caroline exhaled. That total _bitch _that was her without humanity had really dug herself into a hole. She couldn't keep Klaus at arms distance anymore, that much was obvious. He knew the truth about some her more, er, _indecent_, thoughts and was an Alpha wolf with a bone that wasn't going to let go. But Caroline would never be ready to go there with him, not the way she was ready when she flipped the switch. There was…too much damage. She was damaged, and he had done that to her. Sighing, Caroline made her way to the bed and flopped down. She would move back to her own bedroom in a minute, she promised herself, but she couldn't quite face that empty void of a room just yet. Here smelt like Klaus, leather and danger and the undertone of his magic, deadly hybrid blood. Her eyes fluttered shut.

* * *

Urgent, low whispers from the other side of the door woke her up. Caroline's eyes blinked open, and she realised she was still in Klaus' bed, wrapped like a caterpillar in a cocoon in the fur throw. She was about to jump up and try sneak in her own bed before she heard Klaus low growl, tinged with something that she could recognise as panic.

"_Do not tell me what I will do, Elijah, or they may be your last words." _

"She deserves to _know_, Klaus." Caroline froze. She didn't dare move a muscle, or even breathe, in case one of them heard her and stopped. What were they talking about? She didn't doubt for a second that she was the 'her' Elijah was referring to her. She knew Klaus was someone who always had secrets, but what was he keeping from her?

"It's nothing but a myth, brother. And besides…the consequences far out way the benefits of even bothering to delve into it."

"For _you_."

"Any enemy of mine would target her, are you _thick_?" A thump sounded against the wall and Caroline imagined Klaus throwing Elijah against it, his arm against his neck.

"There could now be two weapons to potentially use against you, brother, don't you think that you need to-"

"One is fake and _irrelevant_. "

A sigh. "I'm not quite sure how to appeal to you, Niklaus. I would have thought perhaps the chance of gaining a second chance with the women you love would move you, but your selfishness still reigns higher than anything else."

This time the thumping sound was thunderous, followed by the swift crack of what sounded like bone. Caroline winced.

"I think you've overstayed your welcome, Elijah." Klaus' voice, deadly calm now. Caroline knew that this was when Klaus was most dangerous, smiling and silky, grinning at you like a Cheshire while he murdered everyone you loved and stuck a dagger in your back. The tone of his voice frightened her in the way that his loud bursts of outrage and violence never did. She never knew what was coming next when he was like this, smiling and lethal. Elijah must have known that as well, because the next thing Caroline heard was the faint click of the front door shutting. Elijah was gone. It was just her and Klaus. She took in a slow breath.

What was the myth? And why would knowing it be so dangerous, yet also give Klaus a 'second chance with her'. She needed more information before she tried to do anything about it and realising this, she jumped off the bed quickly, flashing towards the wardrobe door that would take her back to her room and colliding with something warm and hard that made her stumble and fall backwards on her heels. It was Klaus, of course, standing under the door frame with and a strained smirk on his face. Caroline wasn't fooled, could easily see the anger bubbling underneath the contrived amusement. She stayed where she had fallen on the ground, afraid to make any sudden movements, tucking her legs underneath her.

"Hi." She said, forcing a casualness into her voice that she knew was about as convinced as Klaus' artificial smile. "I guess I fell asleep."

"I thought I asked you not to lie to me." Klaus' voice was measured, his every word clipped and careful. Caroline felt her nerves grow. Whatever the secret was between him and Elijah was, it was big, and he was obviously furious that she had been listening in on it. Perhaps it was best to tread carefully. Then again, Caroline was never one for being able to control her big mouth.

"Are you serious?" She snapped, ignoring the immediate flare up of yellow in Klaus' pupils. "You are obviously lying about something _way _huger than just listening into a conversation. And, by the way, you've also sneaked into my house when I've been sleeping before so it's definitely not the biggest case of creeping between us."

"If I were you Caroline," Klaus said, his voice making it clear that this was not a suggestion. "I would go back to my room and forget I heard a thing."

Caroline glared at him, not moving from her childish position on the ground. Klaus glowered back, his body stiff with the evident strain of trying to keep his temper together. He hadn't returned to the earlier silky, charming dangerous stage yet though, so Caroline was nowhere near backing down.

"What did Elijah mean?" She persisted. "That there was another weapon to use against you? Is it another White Oak tree? Another magical stake?"

"_Drop it, Caroline."_

"And what did he mean about the second chance…with me?"

With a whoosh, Klaus was standing directly in front of her, his wired frame looming over her and Caroline suddenly realised how vulnerable her position made her. She tried to quickly stand up, but Klaus pushed her backwards, moving her so that she was seated on the edge of his bed. His mouth was twisted in a cruel smile, his hands heavy and unmoving on her shoulders.

"Is _that _the part that caught your attention, sweetheart?" He asked, his voice mocking. "Do you cling to a new hope that there was something I could do to redeem myself in your eyes, so that you could finally give into the heat you feel around me and fuck me without having to be ashamed after?" Caroline's hand came up and slapped Klaus, hard, across the face before she could think better. A pink mark glowed on his cheek and his finger tightened on her shoulders, making bruises. How could the same person that had worked so hard to get her her humanity back, acted so tenderly and thoughtfully when she had broken down and needed someone be the same man standing in front of her now?

"I could just make you give in." Klaus hissed, his pupils diluting in the unmistaken sign of compulsion. "I wouldn't even be forcing you to do anything you didn't want. I could just take away your inhibitions, and you would do the rest all yourself." He moved one hand so that he was gripping her chin roughly, tilting it so that their eyes would meet. Caroline squirmed against his hold, her eyes blinking shut.

"_Stop _it, Klaus!" She gasped, struggling against him. "This isn't you!"

"_This. Is. Me." _Klaus flashed Caroline up and against the wall, his hand coming to curl lightly around her neck, applying just enough pressure to not hurt but to make the threat clear.

"You can convince yourself of what you like, but the rest of the world is wise enough to know the truth, Caroline. I am _dangerous. _I am _powerful_. I am not someone to antagonize like you seem to enjoy so much. I am-"

'You're afraid." Caroline spat, way too angry now to back down. "You're afraid of whatever it is you and Elijah were talking about, and you're trying to distract me from that by playing the psycho killer. But I _know _you, Klaus, even if it is my just convincing myself of what I like. And I _know _that this whole parade is just trying to make me forget what I heard." Klaus's fingers tightened, Caroline's own flew up to cradle each side of his face.

"Tell me. And I'll tell you the next clue." She promised, her stare hard.

The anger seemed to evaporate out of Klaus face, slowly, replaced by a look of tortured indecision as he considered the compromise. Caroline knew she was the only source of him getting the next clue, what with Pearl dead, yet he still seemed as if he wanted to say no. He wanted the weapon, he wanted to kill the only thing that could make him vulnerable. Whatever the secret was, it must have been colossal to make him even hesitate in this offer.

"Tell me." She repeated firmly.

"I can't." Klaus growled. "Because if I tell you, we'll have to do something about it."

'What does that mean-"

"And I can't allow it to happen. If I tell you, I'll then have to destroy your dreams, love, and I hate to be the one to do it…again." His voice was wracked with emotion. If Caroline didn't know any better, she would think Klaus could possible be on the verge of breaking down. As if he had heard her thoughts, she felt him tense and his expression wiped to one of cool non-chalance. She pursed her lips.

"Why will you have to do that?" She asked.

"Because the other option is too dangerous to consider. Dangerous for both of us." Klaus swallowed. "You're going to hate me. Even more than you already do, and more than you could think you did. So I need you to let me give you something before I tell you."

"What?" Caroline whispered, a feeling of dread growing with every word Klaus said. Dangerous for both of them? What did that mean? Part of her didn't even want to know anymore, but the other, stronger, more dominant part was insistent.

"Say ok." Klaus instructed.

Caroline swallowed. "Ok." She said. "What was it that you needed to give-" As an answer, Klaus lips were pressed against hers. Caroline gasped in surprise and her mouth parted open, Klaus filling the space immediately with his tongue. His hands moved so that one was on her lower back, pushing her body taut to his, while the other twisted into her blonde curls, tilting her face up to his. And just like that, every problem and promise and every comprehensible thought flew straight out of Caroline's mind and all she wanted was _Klaus_. She kissed him back without thinking, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him closer as well, unwilling for there to be any space between them. It was the best kiss she had ever had, skilled and gentle but insistent, controlled but hinting at the sort of uncontrollable it could be. Klaus moved his lips against hers as if it was a choreographed routine, answering every small movement of Caroline's with his own, sucking on her lower lip and brushing his tongue across it in a way that made her eyes spin. He growled slightly against her mouth, his mouth growing more insistent and unyielding against hers, his grip tighter. Caroline felt a moan slip from her lips as she clung to him, wanting him to keep kissing her forever and always, to never remove his mouth from hers, to touch her in this way so that her skin seared with heat and electricity. His mouth moved lower, to trail a line of kissed down her jaw and neck, his breath hot.

"_Klaus_," Caroline whispered, the word coming out reverently, like a prayer.

And then she realised, all at once, what was happening, and what she was _allowing _to happen. Using every bit of self-control and restraint Caroline could find, she pushed him away from her, her breathing shallow. She felt her entire body prickle in protest at the sudden coldness and space between them, and saw from the look in Klaus' eyes that he felt the same. She stared at him, unable to form a single word. She was afraid it would be "Klaus", and wasn't risking it. She couldn't push him away a second time, not at this moment. If hee kissed her again, she was afraid what she would let happen. For a second Klaus looked like he knew that, and was going to kiss her again and make her give in, but then he stopped himself.

"Thank you, sweetheart," He murmured, his fingers brushing lightly over his own mouth as if traces of her were lingering there. "Now, for the big reveal," His voice turned suddenly sardonic, his smirk after tight.

"Tell me." Caroline said shakily, leaning against the wall for support. She wasn't sure she could stand up on her own two legs. She knew what Klaus must be seeing on her right now, trembling and undone from a single kiss, desire probably leaking from her eyes. He didn't make a step towards her, though. Instead, he took a deep breath and walked over to the giant bed, sitting down and patting the empty spot next to him.

"Well, love," He began. "Have you ever heard of the cure for vampirism?"


	10. A Compromise (Kind Of)

**A/N: Hey guys, sorry for a bit of a wait! I've just started a new full-time job, as well as moved into my parents house where I now share a room, so it's been quite a workaround for me to write at the moment! Anyway, a couple of you guessed right about the direction that this story is now moving towards, so I hope you enjoy! R&amp;R**

* * *

"I understand, Klaus, I do not need it explained to me _again_."

Klaus sent the tumbler he was drinking from flying against the room, the glass smashing against the frame of the painting.

"_No, _love, I don't think you _do_ or we would have finished this conversation by now!" He growled, prowling to the side table and pouring himself another drink of bourbon.

"I'm more than happy to end this conversation, Klaus! You said that the sleeping beauty Silas, guarding the all-powerful and all mystical cure, has the ability to drop the veil to the Other Side. So! We go let him do that, and we get everyone we love back."

"No." Klaus exhaled a thin spray of spittle through his clenched teeth. Caroline felt like she was going to explode with frustration.

"I'm not taking no for an answer!" She snapped back, her voice whiny and verging on the edge of hysterical. "What is it that you're so against? The cure? The risk of someone using it against you?" She crossed the room in two long strides, grabbing Klaus by the shoulders. It might not have been the wisest move, getting so close when he was in such a volatile and violent mood, but Caroline had to make him see sense. Somehow.

"I'll take it, Klaus. I'll swallow it down whole, or I'll crush it to dust. And I'll _take _you to the stake as well; before, after, during, I don't mind! You can have Kol back, and Finn, and anyone else that you've been missing over these past a thousand years. I can't even imagine. And-"

"_Do _you want the cure?" Klaus interrupted her suddenly, his voice still. Caroline blinked, having already moved past that point in the conversation what seemed like ages ago. Was he seriously just going to ignore the rest of it? She shrugged, then realised one of her hands had moved slightly to toy nonchalantly with one of Klaus' necklaces. Flushing red, she peeled her hands off him and clasped them behind her back, trying and failing to make the movement seem natural.

"If that's what it takes." She said finally, not sure how else to answer. Klaus was studying her, for once not even seeming to have noticed her embarrassing touchy display, something that normally would have set off some infuriating gloating about her _passion _for him, or whatever. But he was staring straight into her eyes instead, as if he was trying to see if she was telling the truth.

"You don't want to though, right?" He asked. Caroline shrugged again, starting to feel irritated. She wasn't quite dumb enough to realise that this was just a clever ploy to try change the subject.

"No. Probably not. But, like I said, if that's what it takes I'm able and willing." She held her hands up in a 'so help me' gesture.

"All you've done is tell me how terrible your life is." Klaus mused, not bothering with subtlety. Caroline felt herself wince slightly, though she tried to straighten her face out to seem unaffected.

"Why on earth would you continue for another thousand years? Especially, if you had the key to turning it all around and gaining back your average, high school life?"

Caroline chewed her bottom lip. "Well. I mean, there's no real chance of that, is there? That, in all reality, suffocated to death with me under Katherine's pillow." She twisted and untwisted her hands behind her back, the pressure making her shoulders strain. "I mean, wouldn't everything that had happened to me suck a whole infinite amount more if I was also weak? I would've died from alcohol poisoning for sure, by now. Also, I had a habit of making friends with unsanitary strangers." She shuddered, a few regretful memories flickering through her mind. "I like to be able to fight back, even if sometimes I feel like there's no point." Her voice dropped, so low that only Klaus with his supernatural hearing could've heard her whisper. "Plus, if I have them back, anything's worth it." Her entire demeanour seemed to droop, caving into itself as the sadness and guilt of her friend's death began to overcome her. This time, Caroline didn't bother fighting it off, trying to stand up straight and smile perkily. Maybe this would let Klaus see how important this was. He was staring at her, still intensely, his expression unreadable.

"Out of the question." He said abruptly, his voice leaving no room for argument. That is, for anyone but Caroline. She had found a new antidote to momentarily flush away the bad memories and sadness: absolute enraging _anger _at Niklaus Mikaelson.

"Why the hell not?" She growled, all sombre emotional speech flying out the window.

"Everyone. Dead. Back." Klaus hissed in reply, his furious face dangerously close. "Everyone you've ever killed. Hurt. Who's wanted to hurt you."

"Newsflash!" She snapped her fingers in front of his face. Seriously. She stared at them for a single moment, as if dumbfounded that she had actually done that, before thundering on; "I don't have many people that are going to come back angry from the grave. That's just you. And you're immortal, and indestructible, so what's the deal?"

"The deal, Caroline, is that it's not going to happen." Klaus said, his face once again smoothing into an unreadable blank canvas. He whirled away from her, pacing to the end of the room. Caroline watched him, trying to fight the feeling of tears prickling the back of her eyes. It was like fighting with a brick wall. She was never going to get through to him. Klaus was always going to look after number one, when it came _truly _down to the wire.

"The next clue is in New York." She said dully, heading towards the door that led out to the hallway. She wasn't going to stay in this stupid, _ugly _house a moment longer. Klaus was in front of the doorway before she could take more than two steps, his face still revealing nothing even as he blocked her exit. She glared up at him, her anger increasing as she felt the betraying tears well up in her eyes.

"You don't care about them at all, do you? You don't care that they're gone." She heard the words shudder out of her mouth, fought to swallow back her crying and composure.

"Not particularly, no."

"You're disgusting." Caroline tried to push past him, but Klaus held easily, not even seeming to feel her.

"Tell me why I _should_, Caroline. They staked Elijah, daggered Rebekah, killed Finn, killed Kol and tried to kill me more times than I can count." Klaus raised an eyebrow. "They should consider themselves lucky that they made it this far. I have been nothing but soft with them, in fact. They should've realised they were walking into a losing battle. No one fights against me and survives."

"I did!" Caroline shoved him again, as hard as she possibly could. He didn't budge an inch. "And yet, here I am! News flash, the whole reason we're in the same room again is because I was trying to kill you. _Again_."

Klaus smirked. Caroline never thought that a facial expression could infuriate her to this point of a blind red haze, her entire body trembling as she fought and fought with herself to remain in control.

"_What?" _She all but spat, her hands coming out to shove Klaus again. He caught them against his chest, his thumbs stroking circles into the back of her shaking palms.

"Caroline, love, you need to calm down." He said, his voice irritatingly soothing. "You're becoming hysterical and entirely nonsensical." One of his hands came up to tap her lightly on the temple, after which curling into a blonde of hair that was plastered to her forehead from sweat. Caroline jerked her head away so fast that she heard one of her minor bones snap. Klaus winced, his hand returning to the other still holding hers against his chest.

"Love," He chided, "All I'm trying to say is that I don't believe you."

"About what?" Caroline reeled backwards, trying to rip her hands out of his grasp, her brow crinkled in confusion.

"Trying to kill me." Klaus raised an eyebrow at her immediate scoff.

"Well, believe it." She growled, pulling at her hands again. Klaus held onto them easily, leaning forward so that he whispering directly into her ear. His hot breath sent a tickle down Caroline's body, but she refused to react.

"You would've died the moment you plunged the stake through my heart."

"Maybe I didn't care." Caroline said bitterly.

"If you didn't care about your own life then I'm sure you would have ended yourself some time during the first terrible, mournful decade." Klaus drew back, levelling her with his gaze. "I think that the revelation of the witches' stake just opened up an easy way for you to seek me out. You could lie to yourself and to the rest of the world the entire time, never admitting that you were simply looking company." Caroline gave her hands one last wrench and Klaus released them, making her stumble back.

"From who? _You?" _Caroline screwed up her face. "Are you really that up yourself?" She snapped, moving backward quickly so that was no longer in body heat proximity. "In case you missed the memo, I _hate _you."

"Then why give up each and every clue so easily?"

"You bit me!"

Klaus rolled his eyes. "As I have many times, and used my blood to save you each and every time as well. Why kiss me?"

Caroline felt every inch of her skin heat up in embarrassment, sweat beginning to bead on her forehead. "You kissed me!"

"And you kissed me back." Klaus shrugged. "You hold enough contempt for me embracing my true nature that you managed to convince yourself my demise was really your plan of action, when we both know it was so much more." Klaus quickly crossed the empty space between them, backing Caroline up until her back hit the opposite wall. He ducked his head in the crook between her neck and shoulder, inhaling her scent while his nose brushed a line of heat across her collarbone.

"The truth is that you hate the life you've been living, sweetheart. You feel too guilty wanting to live a good life while your friends have none, so you hide your true feelings under anger, and disapproval, when really, companionship is exactly what you've been craving. You've missed someone knowing you, someone knowing what you want and what you need and everything in between. You miss have a friend you can rely on when things become tough. And perhaps, you miss the way that I can make your toes curl when you look at me and see how much I desire you." He kissed Caroline at the hollow of her throat, the briefest brushing of lips. "No, I don't care about your friends. The only reason you have been allowed to live as you have after the ways you have betrayed me is because I like you, and because I see your own want for me despite the way you try to hide it. You hate yourself for coveting a monster, just as I feel my own stupidity when desiring after a teenage cheerleader."

Klaus drew back slightly, so that their faces were mere inches for each other.

"I would have you by now, in every sense of the word, if it wasn't for my own unfortunate temper. Make no mistake of that. But can you blame me, love? I went after the ones you care about only because they did the same to me."

Caroline shoved him away, needing him to get away from her _now_. His remarkably reasonable words, coupled with the way he felt on her, was stirring her up in ways that she didn't care to admit. What was she thinking? It didn't matter Klaus' reasoning's, even if they did make sense in his own twisted mind and perhaps even a little in her own. He had _ruined _her when he had killed her friends!

"Stop it, Klaus." She said, her voice shaking, and she cursed herself for showing any weakness at all in front of him. "Stop trying to _talk _yourself out of this. You can't really expect to do that. Like, ok! Maybe when I had no emotions and didn't care I could tell you that yes, seeing as you're good looking and have an accent and probably know a lot more than high school boys that maybe, the carnal gross vampire bit of me wants to kiss you. Or whatever." She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "And even if by some rare chance you are right and I came to you seeking a connection, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, Klaus! Say again and again that I am stifling what I want, because I will _continue _to stifle it and convince myself that I hate you and keep hating you because of the way you ruined my life. So you can keep trying to touch me and whisper sweet nothings and even if some parts of me wants to give in to you, the bigger, badder part will never let that happen. Do you understand?" Caroline made her way towards the bedroom door again, purposefully bumping her shoulder against his and aggravating a growl out of Klaus. "You're right. I don't want to die. Go to New York, find the stake, and destroy it. I'm going to raise Silas." She walked straight into Klaus' chest again, finding him once again right in the way of the door. "You know, I am really getting _sick _of-"

"I may be immortal, Caroline, but you are not. We are being watched constantly from the Other Side, by Mikael and my mother and countless other enemies. They will have seen the high regard I hold you in, and they will seek to destroy you. I will not allow that to happen."

Caroline gritted her teeth. "It's not your choice to make."

"Of course it is. You know nothing of Silas and will get nowhere or nothing done without my help."

"I'll manage. Let me pass."

"Don't be ridiculous." Klaus sighed, his entire body heaving. "I block you now and you'll run tonight, won't you?"

"I'm getting my friends back." Caroline lifted her chin.

"I guess…when you have your friends back, there'll be no bad blood left between us." Klaus pondered for second, one hand coming up to seemingly subconsciously tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. She slapped it away.

"I mean, yeah, there will be." Caroline disagreed. "Sorry, but I'll probably still remember the decades I spent in agony over it."

"Hmm. I'm sure I'll find a way to make it up to you." Klaus grinned slowly, as if he was imagining it in detail.

"Look, just get out of the way, ok? I'm going to save my friends, even if I need to face the oldest immortal being in the world by myself."

"Spare me the theatrics, Caroline." Klaus rolled his eyes. "I'll help you partake in the stupidest decision of your life."

Caroline narrowed her eyes. "Really? _Just like that? _You're suddenly fine with something you were literally _frothing _at the mouth at before."

"I'm beginning to learn that only make you more eager to do whatever makes me mad." Klaus sighed again. "I have one condition. We find the stake and destroy it first. No point in having two potential weapons if we're grave digging everyone that wants to see me dead."

Caroline was staring at him, trying to work out the angle he was playing. "And…no point in having this argument now, when you could delay it and also conveniently have my company while you destroy the stake, which is what you wanted to do this entire time. Your stance on this hasn't changed at all."

Klaus grinned, not at all perturbed that she had seen right through his facade. "Not at all."

"That's not fair."

"When have I ever played fair?"

"So, let me get this straight." Caroline said, crossing her arms. "I go with you across the country and help you out with whatever you want, and then I'm right back to square one with the whole Silas thing? What 's my motivation?"

"I'd probably be in a better mode after destroying the stake." Klaus offered, smirking at himself. "Besides, we both know you need me to help with Silas. You'd still be at square one with even locating him by the time I've finished finding and getting rid of the stake, and in that scenario, I'd be slightly peeved at doing it all alone and less inclined to help." He turned a pair of wide, innocent looking eyes at her, laughing when she scoffed and rolled her eyes at him.

"Oh, I am so over it, Klaus." She told him. "We do it your way, then we _will _be doing it mine."

* * *

Caroline decided to take her small victories as she could get them. While Klaus was busy looking into anything related to 'Pearl Yung' in New York, he put her in charge of booking their flights, with strict instructions of booking the entire first class cabin for their privacy. She also insisted a mandatory shopping trip for herself before the flight, claiming that she had a pathetically trashy and empty suitcase. She threw out the tight dress, and a lot of her other clothes too, a lot of them now too Goth and ripped for her liking. She didn't know what she had been thinking, but mostly she had needed to fit in with Eric's crowd who wore all black and hung out in scummy vampire den bars. She could dress like herself now, and treated herself to a pricey new wardrobe at the expense of Klaus. If he had a problem, he could consider it payment for her helping him out. As if she hadn't already needed to pay enough. The constant surge of _Liz Liz Liz_ kept trying to fight its way too her surface, to make her breakdown in tears and give up, but Caroline refused to let it. Like she had told Klaus, she was adept at covering things she didn't want to think about. She wasn't going to think about Liz, and she _definitely _wasn't going to think about having feelings that were anything more than platonic wariness for Klaus. She was going to think about her friends, and for the first time in decades that train of thought didn't send her plummeting into a dark place of guilt and anguish.

_She could save them_. Klaus may not be on her side yet but he would be in time, she would see to that, and then she would bring them back and have them again.

As she walked through the airport beside Klaus, rolling an expensive new suitcase behind her, Caroline found herself with an almost comical _skip _in her step. Klaus had noticed her sudden sunny new persona, definitely, and seemed to be enjoying it, but he hadn't commented, probably not wanting to start another argument about his opinion on the Silas matter. Not that his opinion mattered. She would make him see the _right _opinion soon, anyway.

"Caroline, love, get out our tickets." Klaus paused at the airport gates, smiling at her expectantly. Caroline laughed to herself. Oh, she was going to get a kick out of this, her payback for waking up twice too many in a compelled plane seat.

"_Economy?" _Klaus growled as she handed over the tickets. "Is this some sort of a joke?"

"Yes." Caroline smiled sunnily at him. "Obviously."

"Well, ha ha." Klaus said drily. "I'll go compel the hostess now to fix the error."

"Stop." Caroline grabbed his arm. "I like travelling like _normal_ people, Klaus."

"Why? You're not normal."

Caroline flinched slightly. "Yeah, well, I still like to pretend sometimes. I'm not into the big showy acts of opulence, like renting out first class. And I was in charge of buying the tickets, so we'll sit where I say."

Klaus glared at her, narrowing his eyes. "This method of trying to get under my skin is fruitless, love. You're just trying to prove some ridiculous notion to me, pointlessly, I may point out."

Caroline's scathing look at him made him smile, antagonizing her more. "You know, the reason you think me wanting to be human and normal is so ridiculous is because you've never actually tried it yourself." She swiped both tickets and they made their way into the economy boarding lounge, finding two empty hard, uncomfortable grey plastic seats amongst a swarms of people, some sleeping, some eating loudly, some in pyjamas. As pack of sweaty, gross, _normal _people, just like she had wanted. Klaus was staring murderously around them, looking very much liked he'd like to slaughter them all.

"The reason I've never tried it, love, is because I don't need to know my way is better. I'll bet you don't even enjoy this."

Caroline leant back against the hard back of the chair, trying to look comfortable. "Actually, I love it." She lied, not meeting Klaus' amused eyes.

"_I'm telling you, Bill, they aren't friends_. They've got the look of newlyweds."

"Come on, look at the look on his face! Newly split up, maybe."

"Oh, he's probably just looking like that because he saw someone checking out his wife. He seems the protective type." Klaus shot his head into the direction of the gossiping elderly couple, talking in whispers and staring at him and Caroline from the seats opposite. His murderous mood suddenly giving way to amusement, he slung an arm across Caroline's shoulders, pulling her tightly to him and ignoring her small squeal of protest.

"Newlyweds." He confirmed to the couple, leaning over to peck Caroline on the cheek.

"_Klaus_." She hissed in his ear,

"You said you like to pretend to be normal, darling." He whispered back, his amusement growing at her expression darkening to match his earlier one. With one last glare at him she forced a smile on, facing the couple. She wasn't about to make a scene in the airport, or worse, have to compel them and prove to Klaus that she wasn't travelling the way she wanted to , like a normal person.

"Honeymoon." She said cheerfully, through gritted teeth. She felt Klaus's arm move down and slip to around her waist, felt his fingers press a rhythm of light indentations into the sensitive skin just above her waist. His head ducked to the top of her head, pressing a scorching kiss she could feel through her hair. He pulled her tightly to him, so that their thighs were pressed together.

"I'm crazy about her." He told the couple, his voice taking on a campy overtone that made Caroline laugh, despite herself.

"You two are very cute! How did you meet?"

Caroline felt like telling the truth, wiping that smug look of Klaus' face, but then she'd have to compel them, and he would win.

"I'm afraid it's not so romantic," She said instead, and watched as Klaus shot her a curious look, no doubt wondering if she was going to spill the beans.

"I was dating someone else at the time, but Klaus was _quite _insistent." She raised an eyebrow at the couple, her voice taking on the confidential tone as if she was confessing a secret.

"Well, when I want something I get it." Klaus murmured, more to her than the interested watching couple.

"We'll see." She hissed back in vampire-low undertones, before turning her pageant smile back at Bill and his wife.

"It was very spontaneous." Caroline smiled coyishly, then held out her hand, her smile twisting into a disappointed frown. "He couldn't even get the ring in time." Klaus was watching her, admiration at her believable acting outweighing his irritation at her latest addition to the story. He laughed, grabbing her hand and pressing it to his mouth, kissing the bare ring finger as Caroline turned to glare at him.

"My wife, hilarious," He grinned. "New York is just the first stop on our honeymoon travels, and the place where the previously ordered ring is waiting." He winked at the couple. "It was too valuable to ship. And," He turned to Caroline, his hand moving from her waist to brush her hair back over her shoulder. He delighted in the way she seemed to come to life and shiver under his touch, even as her eyes shot daggers at him.

"After New York we have Paris, of course, the city of love."

"Ooh!" The older women clapped her hands together, practically cooing. "And here we are going for a Mets game!" She nudged her husband harshly in the ribs. "Why don't you take _me _to Paris?" She turned her eyes back to Klaus and Caroline, smiled widely at them.

"I knew you two were in love." She looked pleased with herself. "You can just tell, you know, when it's real. I'm a sexual health therapist." Klaus felt Caroline heat up from embarrassment, tightened his grip and pulled her closer as he smirked.

"I see couples, husbands, wives, each and every day." She leant forward, her hands clasping under her chin. "You two will be very happy together."

"That's all I want." Klaus said softly, and Caroline didn't like the twinge of sincerity in his tone. She wriggled out of his grasp and stood up suddenly, grabbing his hand at the last minute to continue with the charade.

"Thanks." She gave the wife a strained smile. "But we should probably be boarding now." Klaus grabbed her suitcase before she could, so that he was carrying both of them, and waved charmingly back at the couple.

"Lovely to meet you. I know how to come for, down the line, if my wife and I ever need it." Caroline aimed a sharp elbow at this ribs while he laughed.

"They were nice." He murmured, moving his free hand out of hers and wrapping it around her waist again, pulling her close to them as they walked.

"Let go of me." Caroline hissed.

"Uh uh," Klaus chided, "They might still be watching. We don't want them to know the truth, do we darling, that we aren't _normal_?"

"Right." Caroline's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I forgot how many normal couples had to travel across the country to pick up their hyper expensive wedding ring."

"We can, if you want."

Caroline whirled on him, stumbling backwards and pushing a stranger backwards.

"Watch it!" The man snapped. Klaus growled. Caroline reined in her stray elbow, flushing.

"Don't joke about things like that." She said to Klaus.

"I'm only joking if you think I am." Klaus shrugged. "Come on, we don't want to miss the plane." Klaus put her luggage in the overhead compartment for her, the perfect gentleman, and let her take the window seat again. Caroline thought about protesting that they should take turns, didn't want him to do her all these favours, but decided that, actually, she deserved it and faced with her entire body turned towards the window, her back to Klaus. The armrest between them was detachable, and before Caroline could react, Klaus had it up and was pulling her backwards to him, his arms curling her waits in a vicelike grip.

"_Klaus_." Caroline breathed angrily. "Let go of me _now_."

"Can't do that, love," Klaus murmured near her ear, his hot breath warming the back of her neck. "We're keeping up an appearance for Bill and his lovely wife." Caroline twisted backwards, as much as she could in the awkward position she was in, and sure enough there was the same elderly couple, whispering and waving at them. Caroline forced a grin, before twisting back and aiming a sharp elbow in Klaus' side. He didn't make any sign of feeling it.

"I'm going to get you back for this." Caroline warned.

"Mm. For now love, why don't you just relax and enjoy the view?" Klaus jostled her slightly, so that Caroline had to lean all of her weight on him, and he wrapped his arms tighter around her, enveloping her in him just like he did on the bed on Tokyo. Despite herself, Caroline felt her betraying body relax against the warmth and solidness of Klaus, her head lolling back to rest against his chest as she watched the plane began to roll and lift into the air.

* * *

"Caroline. Wake up, sweetheart."

Caroline felt a cool hand drift across her forehead, a sudden contrast to the warm solidness of the embrace she was lying in. She felt secure and beyond comfortable, and wriggled backwards further into the hug, allowing the gentle hand to continue stroking patterns on her skin. She was so warm, and enveloped by the most intoxicating smell, like leather and…_Klaus_. Caroline bolted upright, scrambling to the other side of the small seat, as far away as she could from the Hybrid she had just been cuddling with.

"Oh my _God_!" She snapped, drawing her legs under her chin in a ball shape and away from Klaus. "You took that joke _way _too far!" Klaus' eyes weren't full of the amusement they had been earlier, however, instead they were trained in her in that way he had looked at her at his ball or the first night in Tokyo; raw desire bordering on the way a predator would look on his prey. Despite herself, Caroline shivered under his gaze. Slowly, Klaus reached out his hand and mirrored his earlier actions, brushing his thumb across Caroline's cheek and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. Caroline's hands twitched, wanting to slap his hand away but seemingly unable to make the hard journey up there. She averted her gaze, unable to meet his eyes anymore, and pushed herself further away out of his grasp.

"Don't do that." She muttered under her breath, still feeling the line he had traced across her face burn from his touch.

"Don't try to pass off your own feelings as some sort of manipulation on my front" Klaus replied, his voice edged with frustration.

"Oh, I won't." Caroline snapped. "I don't need to add something else onto the already very long list of things I blame on you." She met his stare again, her temper bringing her confidence. Klaus was still looking at her in exactly the same way, as if she was the only person on this entire plane and as if he was moments away from prying that to her. Caroline jutted out her chin, refusing to allow herself to give in and shrink away as being look at like that made her want to. Klaus tapped a finger against his chin.

"And if I can acquit myself of every sin you hold me accountable for? Then what?"

Caroline swallowed at the challenge in his tone. She knew the answer he wanted, and she also knew the answer she was _meant _to give him, but for once, she was at a loss for words. What she _should _do, is allow Klaus to 'acquit' himself and work with her to bring Silas back, and then her friends, and then walk away with her friends into the sunset, leaving the damn Hybrid by himself. But, was she really going to do that? Looking at him now, she really couldn't tell. How weird would it be to go back to a life without him? When he had already stormed through it twice, each time causing just as much havoc as the last. Would they continue this deadly, destructive cat-and-mouse game until she finally gave in? And did she _want _to give in, anyway?

"Then…" Caroline searched for the right words, coming up blank. "Um. I guess we have to go to blank slate."

"Start again?" Klaus raised an eyebrow.

"Well, _no_. I don't think we can do that. I mean, maybe we can go back to being…friends, like we were before." Caroline tugged at one of her curls. What was she doing? Making deals with the devil, as per usual? Klaus pondered her words, rolling the word 'friend' around his head.

"So you'll give me another chance?" He asked.

"Wait! Let's just not…go there. I don't know. No. Maybe."

Klaus grinned. He knew Caroline, exactly how much of a control freak she was. In her books, if it wasn't black and white then it was muddy shade of grey that he could colour to his own advantage. Out of Caroline Forbes's lips, a maybe was as good as yes in his books.

"Have you ever been to New York before?" Klaus changed the subject abruptly, leaning back against his seat. "I always quite fancied the idea of showing you the world."

Caroline rolled her eyes, but was secretly relieved for that awkward conversation to be over. "Well, sorry to dash your dreams, but I've been already."

"As a _human _in a vampire's body, or did you see it as a true vampire should?"

Caroline rolled her eyes again, making the move as exaggerated as she could. "Don't start with this elite bloodline vampire thing again."

"Don't worry." Klaus grinned, the cat who got the cream. "I'll make sure we have a splendid time, even with the circumstances. And after that, I'll get started on my list. Look out the window, love, we're landing."


End file.
